Diabolical Styles
by Darkenning
Summary: To-Love-Ru meets Haruhi meets Haganai meets School Days meets Negima meets Mai-Hime meets the Marvel Cinematic Universe meets ... and on it goes. Sequel to the author's Decadent Habits and Disturbing Routines. Similar warnings apply.
1. Chapter 1

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu_ was created by Tanigawa Nagaru and Noizi Ito. _Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai _was created by Hirasaka Yomi and Buriki. _To-LOVE-Ru_ was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. _School Days_ and associated properties were created by 0verflow. Other series parodied here were created by other authors. This is parody, protected speech._

**Diabolical Styles**  
**Chapter One: Kodaka**

And so it begins. A beginning, we are reliably informed, is a very delicate time. And so we must carefully choose the moment when it begins - a difficult problem, when there are so many possible moments from which to choose only one. Or so it seems. But in truth, the correct moment was chosen long ago. There could only be one moment when this story could begin.

No, that's not true either. While that is the moment, there are others when the story could be said to have begun as well. They are moments every bit as valid as the moment chosen.

There was the moment, a few short years ago, when a girl looked around at the filled seats of an arena, containing more people than she had ever to that point seen, and wondered aloud if this was all the people in the world ... only to be told that, no, it was not even the full population of the city where she lived, much less that of her nation, much less that of the planet on which she resided. It was that moment when she began to realize the immensity of her universe, and her own insignificance. And from that realization would grow something truly astounding.

There was the moment, a few short years before that, when a woman, seated in a beautiful garden and patiently painting a portrait, dropped her brush as she listened to a news report declaring that there had been an attempted assassination of an Empress, and that she had been rushed to a hospital and was expected to make a full recovery. She knew that more of that statement was a lie than the announcer did, and her lovely face twisted in a mask of fury. She never picked up the brush. The masterpiece she was painting would be forever unfinished.

There was the moment, shortly before that, when a woman of the British isles stared at the results of a home pregnancy test, learning that what she had believed was a brief interlude and a midsummer night's fling would be far more consequential than she expected. After a few moments of panic, she got up from the bathroom floor to walk to the telephone and call her lover to give him the good news. In an interesting reversal of expectations, he was happier about it than she was.

And further back, before that, there was the moment that a car came to a stop on a road on a rainy day, and a tutor looked out from the window to offer one of his students a ride home, his eyes not quite hiding a predatory gleam that the girl in question somehow missed. Or, perhaps, chose not to see. And further back, before that, there was the moment when that girl's grandfather brought his illegitimate son home to live with his wife and children.

And further back, before that, there was the moment when, two thousand million years or so ago, two galaxies were colliding, or, rather, passing through each other -

But perhaps that is too deep a background.

Instead, we begin at Mahora Combined High School, on the first day of the new school year, 2005, in class 1-D. Thirty students, roughly evenly divided between boys and girls, are introducing themselves as is the standard practice. Some are paying more attention to this than others. Some know their fellow students, and have varying degrees of interest in them. And being teenagers, a good proportion of them are thinking about sex - either sex that they have had, or sex they want to have.

Not all, though.

And one of them stands up and announces, as she has so many times before, "I am Suzumiya Haruhi. I have no interest in ordinary humans. If there are any espers, aliens, time travellers or sliders in this class, please come talk to me."

And another one, hearing this, takes some vague comfort in the fact that there's at least one person in his class who will have an even harder time making friends than he will.

It's an introduction, of sorts. Perhaps I should introduce myself, as well. I -

No. On second thought, I'll let you figure out who's holding open this window on another world, as someone once said.

* * *

Two weeks after that first day of classes, Hasegawa Kodaka's gloomy expectations about the likelihood of his making new friends had proven entirely correct. He'd actually nursed some vague hopes that here, at this school that seemed to be filled with students from all over the world, things would be different. But they hadn't.

And it was so, so massively unfair! That Yuuki kid had hair just a bit darker than he did, and nobody thought _he_ was a thug. The little bastard actually seemed to be making friends with Sawanaga and Itou, while Kodaka was still a pariah. It didn't make any sense.

(Well, it might have made sense if one realized, as Kodaka clearly did not, that Yuuki Rito's friendship with Sawanaga Taisuke and Itou Makoto was a rather shallow one, that Rito wasn't actually all that comfortable with either of them and that they viewed him as a loser who made them look better by comparison. It might also have helped had he been aware that his status as a pariah had less to do with the color of his hair than it did with the perpetual scowl on his face. Said expression, to be fair, had come about after years of being teased and taunted about his hair, so there was a connection, just not the one that he thought. Kodaka believed that his facial expression conveyed the message that he took things seriously, when in fact it conveyed an attitude best described as 'verging on homicidal'.)

At least he could, just like he'd figured he would, take dubious comfort in the fact that he wasn't the only pariah in his class. In addition to the Suzumiya lunatic, whose seat was now just behind his after they'd moved out of alphabetical order, there was the other Yuuki in his class. She was apparently a cousin of some sort to the boy Yuuki, though he'd never seen them speaking, just like she'd never been speaking with anyone else. And then there was -

Huh?

He'd been thinking all this while stomping (or, as he viewed it, walking with a serious gait) down the hallway back to his classroom, where he'd forgotten one of his books, and just as he was thinking about one person in particular, he'd arrived at the doorway to the class and heard that person's voice. Except that he wasn't sure that it was really that person's voice. It sort of sounded like her, but she'd never sounded so cheerful and upbeat.

And it sounded like she was talking with someone, and he'd just been thinking that she never socialized with anyone.

So, like anyone (or at least, anyone with extraordinarily poor social skills) would do, Kodaka slid the door open just a notch to see (a) whether it was really the person whom he thought it was and (b) with whom was speaking in such friendly terms. It soon became apparent to him that the answers to those questions were, respectively, (a) yes, it was in fact Mikazuki Yozora, though he'd never seen the girl who spent most of her time frowning at the world looking so cheerful, and (b) she was talking to nobody.

Literally, nobody. She was chattering away, as girls (he believed) were wont to do, but there was nobody else there. Abruptly, a terrible thought occurred to Kodaka, and the stress which that thought provoked in him sent a tremor up his arm to the hand that was holding the door open, such that it pushed it open even further.

Abruptly, the sounds of girlish chatter ceased.  
_  
Well,_ Kodaka thought, remarkably calmly. _I'm doomed._

(He was right, incidentally.)

The cheerful look was entirely vanished from Mikazuki's face, replaced by a hostile, suspicious glare that was entirely focused on Kodaka. (It was not all that different from his own perpetual scowl, but Kodaka was in no position to appreciate that. I am, though.) He decided, based on his vast experience in dealing with girls, that the best way to handle the situation was to act as though nothing was wrong, march into the room towards his desk, get what he'd come back here to get, and then -

"Hey," she said.

Of course no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy, does it?

"You were listening to me, weren't you?" she said in a tone which spoke eloquently of death.

Again, based on his countless conversations with girls, he decided that the best option was to lie his head off. "Nope," he said, with complete sincerity. "I didn't hear you talking to ghosts. Not a word of it."

"Ghosts?" she said, anger dissipating in a wave of sheer incredulity. (Is that a word? It is now.) "You think I'm talking to _ghosts_? Are you as crazy as that Suzumiya wench, or do you think I am? There are no ghosts, and if there were I certainly wouldn't talk to them! What kind of a loser talks to ghosts?"

* * *

At this point it would be traditional to switch perspectives to one Asakura Kazumi and Aisaka Sayo, so that one of them could sneeze. Unfortunately, the one of them who is capable of sneezing, as she possesses a functional pair of lungs, was at this particular moment in the grip of orgasm, and so could not sneeze. Really. True fact.

* * *

"Okay," Kodaka said, trying to salvage his plan and make a discrete retreat from this uncomfortable situation.

"I was talking to my friend," Mikazuki elaborated on her defense. "My air friend."

Kodaka paused, and, because some forms of social conditioning affect everyone, even when they know better, repeated what she had just said. "Air friend?"

"Yes, my air friend," she repeated what he had just repeated. (Re-repeated? Whatever.) "You know, like an air guitar." She proceeded to drop down from the window sill where she'd been seated, assume the stance and begin strumming with her left hand while her right pressed down on the chords, all the while making noises that, at least to her mind, resembled a throbbing base line. "Dun-dun-dun, dun-dun!" is a reasonable onomatopoeia.

"Ah," said Kodaka, now terrified beyond rational thought. "That's interesting. Well, gotta go!"

"Okay," Mikazuki said with a sigh. "I realize that sounds crazy."

"No!" Kodaka lied. "Not at all!" he lied some more.

She wasn't really listening, though. "But this is the best friendship I've ever had. No chance of betrayal or abandonment. And you have no room to talk about my not having any friends besides this one!" she added as she started walking towards him.

"I didn't say anything like that," Kodaka observed. Clearly, lies had done him no good, so he swore right then and there to always tell the truth. (This was a lie, of course.) "I didn't even think it," he added as his fit of honesty continued.

"But you're thinking it now, right?"

"Well, yes," he admitted. Honesty was not helping either, clearly.

"So tell me, Kodaka, I know that you stalk though the corridors of this school friendless and alone, but was this always the case?" she asked. "Did you have friends at your previous school?"

Kodaka was too startled by how nice it felt to be called by his personal name, rather than his family name, to really give his next words a lot of thought. "Well, no. I hung out with some people, and I guess we were friendly, but I don't really think we were friends."

"Hah. Well. Maybe that's good enough," she said, looking away.

"No," he said. "I want ... I want real friends."  
She continued to look away. "Uh huh," she said. "Got any bright ideas for getting them? Bribery won't work, by the way. I've tried."

Deciding to ignore that rather frightening statement, he stammered out. "Well ... I mean ... I could join a club or something. I should probably do that anyway, so I don't stand out so much."

"Oh that's great," she said, tones laden with sarcasm. "Imposing yourself on some people who already have a hobby in common, just because you want friends. That's sure to impress them."

"Well, you never know until you try," he said, at last feeling the door behind him as he continued to back away from her. "And I could always start up a new club. I'm sure the paperwork isn't too much of a hassle. Or something. I dunno. Anyway, have fun with your air friend."

And then he was gone, out of the room, leaving her alone.

Or rather, alone with the air.

"You know what, Tomo-chan?" said Mikazuki Yozora. "That's not a bad idea at all. I'm glad I thought of it."

* * *

The rest of the day, after Kodaka's narrow escape was thankfully much more mundane. Escape, leave school, walk to the small house where he and his little sister resided (in dramatic contrast to the dormitory housing of most Mahora students), spend the evening cooking for her and dealing with her weird delusions (a few years too early to be diagnosed as "eighth-grader syndrome", and having a much more interesting cause), bathe with her, do homework, then go to bed.

(Mundanity is in the eye of the beholder.)

He entertained some vague hopes that the next day would be just as mundane as all that, even though he was aware that his own decisions - specifically, his decision to make friends by joining a club - meant that it probably wouldn't be. Aside from that, he was also worried about how to go about doing so. While the first week or so of school had been filled with people trying to recruit for various clubs, he hadn't really been paying attention at the time. Now that things had settled down, he found it somewhat difficult to recall which clubs had seemed interesting.

Despite what he'd said, the notion of forming his own club didn't really appeal. While he _could_ do that, he knew that his new club would have to get a few members in order to become official ... and he had no confidence in his ability to get those new members. No, despite what Mikazuki had said, he'd have to find a club whose activities interested him and hope that shared interests led to friendship. It should work. Probably.

But which club, he wondered as he entered homeroom early. _Which club?_

And then he saw, in her usual seat right behind his, the answer to his problems. If rumors were to be believed, Suzumiya Haruhi had joined just about every club that they had on offer, for times ranging from a half-hour to a full day. Whatever her reasons for quitting them, she must have picked up a lot of information about them.

Sliding into his desk, Kodaka hesitated a moment, before turning around to look right at the girl. She was staring out the window with her usual expression of discontent, spoiling what even he had to admit was a rather pretty face. "Um, Suzumiya-san?" he began.

She grunted a response which he took as permission to continue speaking.

"Well, you see, I've heard this rumor about you -"

"Yes, I'm dating a sophomore guy, and have been for the last two years," she said, with the air of one repeating oneself, and without a glance in his direction.

"Oh," Kodaka said. He hadn't heard that rumor. For lack of anything to say, beyond an admission of that, he instead said, "Is he an alien?"

Now Suzumiya was looking at him, and he really wished she wasn't. "What are you, twelve?" she asked. "Of course he's not an alien. If he was an alien, do you think I'd need to announce that I was looking for aliens? I'd have found them, obviously. No, he's not an alien. I hoped he was an alien, or something else out of the ordinary, when he transferred here late in the school year, but it turned out that he was just an ordinary guy."

"Oh," Kodaka said. He was oddly conscious of the fact that this was probably more words than Suzumiya had said to anybody since the school year began. "Then ... why are you still dating him?" He wasn't sure where the question had come from.

"The sex is adequate," she explained, looking away.

"Oh," Kodaka said. Now this was territory he absolutely positively definitely did not want to explore. There was no option except to jerk the conversation onto the rails he'd wanted to follow in the first place. "Actually, what I'd heard is that you've joined a lot of clubs, and -"

"They all suck," she said. "I tried the mystery research club, and they actually ran away from the chance to investigate some of the attacks last year. I tried one of the paranormal research clubs, and they turned out to be a bunch of occult freaks and perverts. I mean, I'm not bothered by that sort of thing, but that's not what I'm after. All the clubs in this place suck. I hoped things would get better when I got to high school, but they haven't."

"Oh," Kodaka said, bidding his hopes for useful intelligence a fond adieu. "Well, sorry to hear that. I guess the best option would be to make your own, then, for the sort of thing that you are after." It was almost an afterthought, uttered just before the rest of the class made their way in, and he turned to face the front, glad the awkward conversation was over.

And so not seeing the way that Suzumiya Haruhi was staring at the back of his head for the rest of the day.

His life grew more complicated around lunch.

"Hasegawa-san?" said a polite voice from his side.

Kodaka snapped his head up from where he'd been resting it against his desk. It couldn't be. But it was. A girl was talking to him without any provocation on his part. And not just a girl. But the girl. Asakura Ryoko, the incredibly popular, beautiful girl who'd been the class' near-unanimous pick for class rep. (Saionji Sekai had gotten one vote, and it was generally believed from her embarrassed look when the votes were read that she hadn't voted for herself.) And she was smiling.

Okay, that last bit wasn't all that impossible, since she always seemed to be smiling. He'd heard that she'd had a solemn look on her face once, but he hadn't really been paying attention on that occasion.

But compounding the implausibility, she wasn't alone. Standing just behind her were those two girls, a blonde - Momioka, he thought - and her petite, pony-tailed glasses-girl friend - Sawaka? No, Sawada. And they were smiling at him, too. What was going on here? Had he been selected for some sort of human sacrifice?

"I heard from Sawada-san that you were having a conversation, earlier, with Suzumiya-san," Asakura said. "Is that right?"

No, no, it was worse than a human sacrifice! "Ah, well, sort of," he said, glancing behind him. Of course Haruhi wasn't there, having departed as soon as the lunch bell rang, no doubt engaged in some strange errand. They probably wouldn't have approached him if she _was_ there. _Curse you, Haruhi!_

"She never talks to anybody!" Momioka said, which probably didn't need to be said, since everyone present was well aware of that. "I guess being a Yankee must give you a lot of nerve!"

Now, _that_, Kodaka decided with a look at her hair, only slightly darker than his own, was distinctly unfair. Before he could protest that he wasn't a Yankee, or say anything in his own defense, though, Asakura was talking again.

"Well, however you managed to do it, you managed to have a civil conversation with Suzumiya-san. I would really appreciate it if you could keep doing that, so that she'll have at least one friendly associate in class. I think that would be a good step in helping to turn her into a happy classmate."

Kodaka just stared. _What the hell?_ How was associating with _him_ supposed to do _that_?

"Which would be great!" enthused Sawada.

"'Cause she's hot!" added Momioka, smile taking on an edge.

Now he blinked, as he tried to understand why another girl was describing Haruhi as 'hot'. Beautiful, he could see anyone saying, but 'hot'? "Ah, well," he temporized. "I'll s-see what I can do." It wasn't like he could refuse a polite request from the class representative, was it?

"Thank you so much," Asakura said, smiling. "Until then, if we ever need to get a message to Suzumiya-san, we'll pass it through you, all right?"

Apparently, he'd not only become Suzumiya's sponsor in Friendless Jerks Anonymous, he was also her manager. "Right," he temporized. "Um, excuse me, I need to, um, excuse me," he finished weakly as he stood up and edged his way out of the room.

Shaking his head as he walked down the hallway towards the washroom, he mused that at least things couldn't get any screwier than they already had.

And then someone grabbed him by his tie and started dragging him towards the stairwell.

It was a moment before he realized who was dragging him, and another moment in which he was too baffled by the sheer strength of the small girl who was doing it to offer any comment. Then there was the moment of sheer horror in which he was being pulled up the stairs and unable to draw breath because the tie was pulling tight around his throat like a noose. She finally came to a halt in front of the landing's window, letting go of his tie and whirling around to shove a piece of paper in his face.

"I did it!" proclaimed Mikazuki, with a snarling smile of triumph.

Kodaka was desperately loosening the tie and taking deep breaths, so he couldn't immediately respond. When he did, he naturally came back with a wheezed, "What?"

"I did it," she repeated, perhaps a little less savagely but a bit more smugly. "I went down to the administration and established a new club." She emphasized this by shaking the paper she was still holding up.

He blinked and took a slightly longer look at the paper, which was, he now saw, emblazoned with the school's logo and a header reading "Club Registration Form". Looking a bit further down, he read the new club's name.

"The Neighbors Club?" he read aloud.

"In the spirit of Christian fellowship, we shall strive to be good neighbors to each other, growing closer to each other each and every day," she recited the club's statement of purpose, written just below the name.

"I can read, you know," he told her.

"I wasn't sure."

Swallowing that not-terribly-subtle burn, Kodaka looked from her face to the sheet. "Christian fellowship?"

"What?" she asked. "They're rebuilding that big-ass church, aren't they? Plenty of nuns all over the place. Christianity is clearly big here. Plus, the administration wouldn't want to seem like they were restricting our freedom of religion."

The sheer naked cynicism nearly overwhelmed him, and he let out a long breath. "Well," he said at last. "You've clearly thought of everything. I hope you and your fellow good neighbors have lots of fun together."

"You're joining," she said.

"... I'm what now?"

"You're joining," she repeated. "It was your idea, after all, so I put you down as one of the charter members." She pointed out his name under the list of members, consisting of three names, one of which was Mikazuki's own.

He stared. "You can't do that."

"No, it was easy, see?" She pointed out his name again. And mimed writing it.

He struggled to find something to say to that, something that expressed his objection. But the words would not come. Staring at the list, all he could say was, "And, and who's this person?"

"Last member of the Literature Study Club. I talked her into letting us use her club's room for meetings, so of course she's joining too. Her club's going to be disbanded when they review things and find out it has only one member, after all. You've got to have at least five, you know."

"And you've got three -"

"_We've_ got three. For now," she corrected. "We'll get others."

"Okay, no. I'm not -"

"You said you wanted to join a club, right?" Minazuki said, just a bit sharply. "So you could make friends. So here's a club specifically for the purpose of making friends. What is the problem, here?"

"Well, I don't know, maybe I could -"

"Nope."

"I haven't even said what I was going to do," Kodaka growled.

"You're going to talk about making your own club, right? Sorry, nothing doing. The secretary told me that the school allows for a limited number of non-specific clubs, like this one, every year. And guess who's got two thumbs and filled the last available berth?" She pointed at herself with both thumbs. "This gal."

* * *

Suzumiya Haruhi stormed out of the administration's offices swearing like a sailor. As this was not a terribly uncommon occurrence, all that transpired was that one of the secretaries made a discrete phone call once she was out of hearing range.

* * *

Sensing the certainty of his defeat, Kodaka sighed. "Okay. Fine. I'll go along with this ... Neighbor's Club." He looked at the sheet again. "You even found a faculty advisor, too. Is this guy a foreigner?"

"Negi-sensei? Yeah, I think he's from Wales or something."

Huh. He had the vague notion that Wales was right beside England. That was interesting. "Well, I guess we've got a club, now, Mikazuki -"

"It's Yozora, Kodaka," she said.

He blinked. Not only did she use his personal name, she was insisting that he use hers? That was ... odd. But then, he was coming to realize that this was a very odd girl.

Be that as it may, he supposed that he shouldn't be completely surprised that she insisted on showing him the room that she'd found for this club, immediately. While initially grateful that she allowed him to walk at his own pace rather than be dragged like he had been before, Kodaka started to get nervous once he realized that the club room was (a) not in the same building as their classroom and (b) not in a building in the same general area as the building in which their classroom was held.

"Um ... you know, maybe we should wait until after class to go there," he said as they walked briskly across the campus.

"Don't be ridiculous," Mi- Yozora said, without looking back at him. "We need to claim the classroom quickly in case the Literature Club realizes what we're doing and acts like a bunch of dogs in the manger by reforming."

"Dogs in the -" He set that aside for the moment. "But, we might be late getting back to class?"

"So?" she said, again without a backward glance.

"We'll get in trouble," he said. "People already think I'm a delinquent, and -"

"Don't be silly," she said, holding up a hand as though to wave off his concerns. "You're going to your club, right? You can't be a delinquent if you're going to your club."

Kodaka was fairly sure that wasn't how it worked. But they finally arrived at the building in question, an older, semi-abandoned one that wasn't actually too terribly far from the one where they had class. If they hurried, they'd probably be back before bell. Probably.

Entering, they headed up the stairs to the second floor, and then Yozora threw open one of the doors. "Behold!" she proclaimed.

Kodaka beheld. Specifically, he beheld a rather small room with a table, some chairs, some shelves with books on them set against one of the walls and a coat rack on the other, and a petite girl seated at the tables staring at a computer screen while wearing a set of headphones.

"Nice and cozy, don't you think?" Yozora said, strolling in.

"Is that -"

"Ah, right. Member number three. Hey, Yuki," she said, waving at the girl.

Said girl made no response. This was perhaps to be expected, given her complete immersion in whatever it was she was doing on the computer. With a faint bit of curiousity, Kodaka glanced over her shoulder and discovered that it was some sort of fantasy role-playing game. Lacking interest in the subject, he turned back to Yozora. "Yes, very quaint," he said. "Now let's get back to class."

"What's the rush?" she asked.

"... the rush is a complete lack of interest in getting lectured about cutting class."

"Eh, it'll happen whether you're interested or not," she said dismissively. "Anyway, first I want to show you something." She proceeded to start opening her uniform jacket.

"Oh, hey, wait a minute," Kodaka said, backing away.

"What?" Yozora asked, looking genuinely perplexed as she pulled a piece of paper out of the jacket's inside pocket, then unfolded and held it up for him to see. "I made a photocopy and put it up on the school bulletin board."

What small poise he'd managed to regain instantly fled as he stared at the childish drawing of ... a large number of people (and, um, not-people) holding what looked like mushrooms - with little arms and legs - and smiling broadly under a rising sun which was also smiling and holding a mushroom. With writing underneath.

"What the crap is this?" he asked.

"It's our recruiting poster," she said. In response to his wordless gaze of disbelief, she elaborated. "I decided to draw that song, you know? When I'm a third grader I'll make a hundred friends and we'll eat onigiri on Mt. Fuji?"

"That's supposed to be onigiri?" he asked. "Why did you give it arms and legs?"

"Because it's cute," Yozora replied, clearly starting to sound exasperated.

"Okay, setting that lunacy aside -"

"Hey, lunacy?"

"What's with this message? It doesn't say anything about what this club is supposed to do. It's just ... I'm not even sure what to call it."

"Read it diagonally," she said, sounding cross.

He did so. "... who the hell is going to notice this?"

"Anyone who does notice it is going to be just the sort of person we want in this club!" Yozora proclaimed.

The door, which they'd closed behind them, swung open once more. "Recruiting friends?" said a voice.

Standing there, breathing rather heavily in the fashion of one who has run a marathon while radiating almost incandescent fury, was Suzumiya Haruhi. Her eyes didn't so much wander around the room as dart from place to place, finally settling on Yozora.

"Recruiting friends?" she repeated.

"That's right," Yozora said tightly. "You wanna make something of it?"

From the look on Suzumiya's face, it seemed fairly clear that she did. But she drew in one more deep breath, and regarded her calmly. "I want to join."

"Rejected," Yozora said without hesitation. "Kodaka, would you kindly get rid of this wench?"

"_What_ did you just call me?"

Right at the moment, Kodaka couldn't imagine anywhere he wanted to be less than right here. And that wasn't easy, because he could imagine a lot of very unpleasant situations. "Uh, Yozora," he said. "Didn't you say that anyone who could figure out the hidden message was someone you'd want in the club?"

"I say lots of things," Yozora replied. "She doesn't count."

"Why not?" Kodaka and Suzumiya asked in rough synchrony, though using very different tones.

"Because of th- the way that she's obviously up to something!" Yozora exclaimed, somehow changing course mid-way through the sentence. She glared at Haruhi. "You are obviously up to something, wench!"

"You did it again," Suzumiya said, more amazed than anything else. "What do you mean I'm up to something?" she asked a heartbeat later.

"You're up to something!" Yozora repeated, just a bit angrily.

"Repetition is not explanation!" Suzumiya answered just as angrily.

Yozora made a few false starts, before she finally pointed a finger at the other girl. "You said on our first day that you don't have any interest in ordinary people."

"Yes, that's right," Suzumiya agreed.

"Well, there you go, then. This is a club that's all about becoming friends with ordinary people, so you wouldn't have any interest in it!"

"Oh yeah?" Suzumiya sneered. "You really think ordinary people are gonna figure out that daft secret message?"

"She has a point there," Kodaka observed.

"Don't encourage the wench!" Yozora yelled at him. Then back to Haruhi. "So anyway, you are obviously scheming to come in here, take over our friendly association of friendship and, within a couple of weeks, turn it into something weird like a group to look for aliens and espers and time travellers and, and whatever that other thing you were looking for was -"

"Sliders," Kodaka supplied.

"Don't encourage her!" Suzumiya yelled at him. Then back to Yozora. "You are a paranoid little girl, you know that? I would never even consider what you're suggesting." (Which was true. She'd had a much more long-term strategy in mind, taking most of a month rather than a couple of weeks. Clearly she was going to have to draw it out even longer to avoid attention.)

"Sheah, right," Yozora sneered. "Anyway. As president for life of the Neighbors Club -"

"You're what now?" Kodaka interjected.

And was completely ignored. "- I am officially rejecting your petition for membership."

"Objection!" Suzumiya cried, holding up a swirly tipped finger. "School regulations officially state that the officers of a club may not unilaterally reject any petition for membership without the consent of a simple majority of the existing club membership!"

"You actually read the school regulations?" Yozora asked, jaw dropped.

"I have a lot of spare time!" Suzumiya snapped.

"Well, fine," Yozora growled after a moment. "Hand poll. Let those who wish to accept the petition for membership of this wench raise their hands." She proceeded to glare murderously at Kodaka.

Kodaka flinched beneath the stress of her regard. The last thing he wanted to do was raise his hand under these circumstances. And come to that, didn't she already have a boyfriend? What did she need with more friends? So really, the smart thing to do would be to keep his hand lowered.

And yet.

He remembered how Asakura had asked him to do what he could to help Haruhi, and the warmth of the girl's smile. So, with a sigh of certain doom, he raised his hand.

"Uh huh," Yozora said, nodding, still glaring a look that promised death to all traitors. "How sweet. One for, one against, president breaks all ties, so -"

"You need to count again," said Suzumiya.

"What are you talking about, there's me, him and -" Yozora broke off. Slowly, she turned.

Nagato Yuki had not looked up from her computer. But her hand was raised all the same.

"She's wearing headphones," Yozora said dazedly. "How does she even know what we're talking about?"

"Two for, one against," Suzumiya said with an obvious smirk.

"Welcome to the Neighbor's club, Suzumiya -" Kodaka started to say.

"It's Haruhi," the girl interrupted. "If you're going to call _her_ by just her name, you can do the same for me. Now about our recruitment efforts - the poster has its points, but I believe we can do better with something ... _moe_."

Haruhi, as she would insist on being called, did not have a chance to elaborate on what she meant by that. With the membership situation resolved, Kodaka's earlier anxieties about being late for class returned in full. "Well, now that that's settled, we should really get back to class!" he said, clapping his hands and smiling broadly.

"Wow, you have got to do something about that grimace," Haruhi said, staring at him.

"It looks like you're in incredible pain," Yozora said. "As though from a stick up your ass, for example."

The two girls did not share a glance, silently communicating the notion that though they despised each other, they were in total agreement about Kodaka's unpleasant smile. Some degrees of mutual loathing cannot be overcome by such agreements.

"I don't have a - look, I just don't want to get in trouble over this, okay?"

"Eh, that probably won't happen," Yozora said.

* * *

"To borrow a phrase from one of my colleagues, the sheer irresponsibility of our current crop of students is driving me to despair!" Nitta-sensei proclaimed, sitting at his desk and glaring angrily at the trio of students who were standing before it.

"I think Itoshiki-sensei actually usually says, 'has driven me to despair', said the young boy whom Kodaka had been informed was Negi-sensei, as he stood beside Nitta regarding them with a more sympathetic expression. Which would probably have been a bit comforting, if, you know, he hadn't been a child younger than any of them.

As Nitta-sensei continued lecturing them, he combined the rant with a few shots at Negi-sensei for continuing to fail to provide discipline to the students. Kodaka thought that was a bit unfair since the boy teacher hadn't even been present for any of this, not that anyone was consulting Kodaka for his opinion. Of course, if they _had_ consulted him for his opinion, he would have been too busy giving Yozora heck for picking a little kid to be their faculty advisor, genius or not. What had that girl been thinking? He would really like to know!

There was no possibility of asking her, though, under the present circumstances. She was staring off into space, letting the lecture flow off her like water off a duck's back. He might have envied her that poise if he didn't suspect that it wasn't poise, but simply actual indifference.

On the other hand, Haruhi was staring rather intently at Negi-sensei. Kodaka found himself wondering what was up with that. Now that he realized that Negi-sensei was one and the same person with the boy teacher he'd heard rumors about, the one who somehow caused shotacon behavior in girls, he was starting to wonder just how depraved Haruhi might be.

Eventually, after what felt like hours, Nitta-sensei's lecture about The Horrors of Truancy, supported with ample reference to Students Of The Past who had Fallen From The Path and Their Dreadful Fates, reached what seemed like a logical conclusion. Negi-sensei smoothly swept in before another lecture could begin. "Yes, of course you're right, Nitta-sensei," he said. "I'm sure that these young people -"

Everyone stared at him.

He continued without pause. "- were simply overwhelmed by the excitement of forming a new club. I'll be sure to keep an eye on them to make sure that they don't do it again. In fact, I'll escort them to their classroom right now so that they don't miss any more of their class."

"Hrmph," said Nitta-sensei. "Well, then, I'll leave them in your care. Remember, Negi-kun, their behavior reflects on you."

"Yes, of course," Negi-sensei agreed, silently gesturing for the three students to head for the door, which they of course did. He followed them, bowing politely as he closed the door.

"Ooookay," he said when that was done. "While he's overdid that a bit, it's important to prioritize classroom time over -"

"Negi-sensei, are you an alien?"

The boy didn't even pause to stare bewilderedly at Haruhi. "Only a legal one."

"Huh?"

"An attempt at humor. No, Haruhi-san, I'm not an alien, a time traveller, an esper or a ... what's the other thing?"

"Slider," supplied Yozora.

"... well, I do enjoy waterslides, but I wouldn't say that I'm -"

"That's not ... ngh. Are you sure?" Haruhi pressed. "You wouldn't lie to an innocent girl, would you?"

"Of course not!" Negi assured her. "Is something the matter, Kodaka-san?" he asked the boy, who'd broken into coughing for some reason.

Kodaka waved for Negi to not worry about him, since he found it impossible to speak right then.

* * *

Despite what Yozora thought, her poster's hidden message wasn't that hard to figure out, at least for the generally highly educated populace of her high school. On its first day posted on the school's bulletin board, several students other than Haruhi paused to take a look at it, then tilted their head to see the message hidden in the diagonal.

The first was a rather beautiful young girl who paused to do so just briefly. She quietly sounded out the hidden words, and made a sad face. But a side glance told her that she was under observation by a trio of hostile glares, so Katsura Kotonoha quickly moved on before she had a chance to note the location of the Neighbors Club's headquarters. Something of a pity, really.

If she'd paused just a little longer, she'd have realized that those hostile glares - from a trio of girls who will not be introduced at this time - were not the only eyes on her. A rather more sympathetic pair were also following every step she took, every move she made, and had definitely noted her pause. Curious, Itou Makoto paused to look at the poster she'd examined, and tilted his head as she'd done as well.

He didn't see it, though. After a moment, he shook his head and continued his way out of school.

But his own pause had been noted, and in what might be considered something of a domino effect, the person who'd noted it paused as well, tilted _his_ head. And did see the message. But Yuuki Rito blinked in confusion. Despite his awkwardness and occasional shyness, he'd never had any difficulty making friends. He was aware that some of them might not be terribly good influences on him, but he'd never lacked for friends. With a shrug, he headed towards the lockers to change into his shoes, and then towards something he'd been meaning to do for a long time.

The domino effect continued as a petite red-haired girl who'd seen Rito taking a look at the poster sauntered up to it herself. She'd exchanged a grand total of five sentences with this boy who was apparently her cousin, and didn't honestly think much of him. But if he'd found something interesting, she was curious enough to wonder what it might be. And so she tilted her head as well.

A smirk crossed her face, and Yuuki Nao shook her head. People who had the misfortune of not being her never ceased to amuse her. She sauntered away from the poster, but on an impulse - for she always obeyed her impulses - she fished her rather rulebreaking cellphone out of her vest pocket, and lifted it to her ear after hitting one of its speed dials. "Hey, Natsuki," she said. "Wanna go out tonight and beat people up? ... Great!"

Friendship takes many forms.

That seemed to be the end of the dominos. The next person to give the poster a more than casual glance did so a few moments after Nao passed by. It was really more of a double take than anything else. Well, actually, there's no way that it can be considered anything other than a rather exaggerated double take, as the young woman in question first gave it the aforementioned casual glance as she was passing it while accompanied by her two friends, then looked away.

Then her eyes widened and, just as she was lifting her foot to take another step forward, her head twisted back to stare widely at the poster again, freezing in this extremely awkward and unbalanced position. The outcome was, of course, inevitable. She pitched forward and landed flat on her face in the hallway.

Of the two girls accompanying her, one promptly began to laugh her head off, to the appalled stare of the second. "Yeah, I'm sorry, Haruna-chan, but you've got to admit that's funny," said Tsuruya THIS NAME HAS BEEN CENSORED IN YOUR OWN INTEREST.

I hate it when that happens.

"It's not that funny," said Saotome Haruna, shaking her head, a bit hypocritically since, if we're being honest, she found it just as amusing as Tsuruya. She did help her friend up, asking, "Are you okay, Mikuru-san?"

"Ah," said Asahina Mikuru, blushing prettily. "Yes, yes, I am. I just saw something very confusing, that's all."

They looked where she'd looked, saw nothing terribly confusing, and returned skeptical and amused glances to Mikuru.

"It's not there, now," she offered feebly.

"Ahhh," they chorused.

Away they went.

* * *

Later. Much later.

He stood before the window, looking down on the world both figuratively and literally, watching the lights of evening come up, occasionally allowing his eyes to stray over to the World Tree and a few other points of interest, such as a certain haunted-looking mansion on the city limits, barely visible from this dormitory tower. He had long been aware of the powers at work in this academy, but since his own interests in such matters were largely specialized, he'd never paid them much mind.

But things changed. He smiled thinly. Though he himself had not changed in any real sense since the early eighties, he was not fool enough to deny that things did change. He supposed that becoming richer and richer with each passing day was a change, but it wasn't a dramatic one, the sort of changes that had brought him here.

Or specifically, the opportunities they presented.

The noise from the bed was a bit distracting, but he kept his eyes and his mind on the specifics of his plan. The distraction of his cell phone ringing, on the other hand, was one that he couldn't ignore. He checked the number, and was somewhat surprised. But on a moment's reflection, considering the success of phase one of his plan, he supposed that he shouldn't be.

"Good evening, Makoto," he said as he took the call.

"What are you doing?" the boy's voice snapped on the other end.

"At the moment, I'm considering certain business opportunities that have presented themselves," he answered, far more politely than he'd just been addressed. "Is something the matter?"

"Mom called," the boy said. "She said that you just up and dropped Itaru with her. Why did you do that?"

"... are you unhappy that your sister and your mother are being reunited?" he asked, feigning confusion. "I don't understand why you'd get upset about this. It's not like you'll be kicked out of your room, or anything. You're at the boy's dorm at your school, aren't you?"

"That's not the - you're up to something."

"Yes, as a matter of fact, I am," he admitted, smiling again. "As I said, I'm making some business moves that require my undivided attention, so I don't have time to look after my daughter at the moment. So I've returned Itaru to your mother. It's not that complicated." That was a lie, of course.

"... you're up to something," the boy repeated.

"I admitted that," he replied. "Was there something else?"

"... no."

"All right then. How's your love life?"

"... I'm not about to discuss it with -"

"If you can't talk about these things with your own father, I really hope you have some good friends," he said. "Well, just remember what I told you. Enjoy yourself. Don't ever let anyone tie you down. And remember -"

"- someday you'll come to steal any cute girlfriends I get away from me," Makoto recited the words he'd said to him, the last time they'd spoken, in a weary tone.

"And someday might be sooner than you'd think," he added. "Later, kiddo." He hung up before the boy could respond to that, then turned the phone off so that he couldn't be interrupted.

Just in time, as it happened, because the sounds from the bed had turned into coherent words. "I think she's ready," said the older of the two women there, her words a bit slurred by the juices she'd been drinking.

He turned with a smile to regard her, crouched between the legs of the adorably young-looking girl whose hands were firmly tied to the headboard of the bed on which she was lying, as she trembled in what was doubtless a heady mix of arousal and horror. Arousal was inevitable when someone performed cunnilingus with skill. Horror was inevitable when that person was one's mother.

"Well done, Mai-chan," he complimented her as he approached them, skinning off the boxers which were his only clothes, aside from his amulet. "Are you ready, Setsuna-chan?"

"W-who _are_ you?" she gasped, eyes helplessly drawn from his mustachioed face down to the thing between his legs. It was, he supposed, the first time she'd ever seen one. _Should have been more thorough, Shun,_ he thought, smile widening.

"You can call me daddy," he told her as he settled between her legs, her mother holding them open for him. "Or Tomaru. As long as you call it out frequently," he added, shoving himself into her.

She did, eventually. He supposed that he could have told her to call him grandpa, since he was the father of both her mother and her father (as well as her maternal grandmother) but that made him feel so old. And the last thing he wanted, especially as he fucked yet another one of his cute little girls, was to feel old.

If this worked, he'd never feel that way, ever ...

* * *

Elsewhere that evening in Mahora, in the open doorway of one of the hangars formerly used by the now-disbanded aviation club, a pair of men in black suits were standing with a third, rather petite, hooded figure in an orange jumpsuit. The older of the two men touched an earpiece. "We have confirmation that they're inbound," he said to his colleague. "When they arrive, don't say anything, don't take offense to anything they say, don't react." His eyes turned to the figure standing between them. "This is your last chance. We can offer you asylum -"

The figure's hooded head rocked back and forth, just once.

"Then I'm genuinely sorry, but you're leaving us with no options but to turn you over -"

Whatever else the man might have said was lost beneath the whining sound produced by the engines of the vehicle which now descended towards the hangar doors. It resembled, if anything, a stealth bomber, though such vehicles couldn't maneuver as this one did, nor did their landing gear flow like liquid metal from the bottom of the hull moments before it settled down. In the exact same way, a hatch appeared on the hull, and a ramp descended.

Down came a pair of men, slightly larger than the two men below, dressed in suits chosen as though to parody them - though allowing for their tails to swing freely behind them.

"Remove the hood," said the foremost of the two new arrivals.

Wordlessly, the senior agent did so. Pink hair flowed freely down the small girl's back as she looked with calm defiance towards the men with tails.

"Your highness," the foremost said, with a slight bow that conveyed no real sense of deference. "We will be taking you home now. Do you wish us to annihilate your captors and all who know them?"

The senior agent saw his companion's breath catch at that, and he allowed himself a slight frown. _That one won't last long in this business._

After a moment, she spoke. "They have done their duty, as they saw it. Let no harm come to them."

"As you wish." With a gesture, he beckoned towards the hatchway.

With a sigh, the girl started walking in that direction ... then paused, to look back at the agents. "Agent Coulson," she said. "Have you heard of a book called _Paradise Lost_?"

"It's a fairly famous one. Your highness," he added, as an afterthought, when he saw a slight tension in the arms of one of the emissaries.

"'Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven,'" she quoted.

"I think I see your point," he replied. Then, in her own language, he added, "May you find all you seek."

She smiled at him. "I hope so," she said in his, and walked up into the ship, followed closely by the two emissaries.

"I would bathe," she said, as the door closed behind them. _Clever agent,_ she thought. _"I see your point." When speaking of lines written by a blind man, spoken by the master of lies. You do your master proud. I hope I will not cause you any trouble, clever agent._

_But it is far better neither to reign nor to serve, in neither heaven nor hell, but to fly freely in the world that lies between. And I_ will.

**NEXT: Lala.**


	2. Chapter 2

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu_ was created by Tanigawa Nagaru and Noizi Ito. _Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai _was created by Hirasaka Yomi and Buriki. _To-LOVE-Ru_ was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. _School Days_ and associated properties were created by 0verflow. Other series parodied here were created by other authors. This is parody, protected speech._

**Diabolical Styles**  
**Chapter Two: Lala**

One of the consequences of the series of disasters which had afflicted the Mahora area in recent years had been a rather dramatic change of school policy when it came to dormitory living. A number of the dormitories had been seriously damaged by those disasters, to the point where the schools didn't have room for all of their students, despite their dwindling enrollment. Thus, the school authorities had had no real choice but to grudgingly permit students to take up homes in apartments off campus, or continue to live with their parents or guardians in town - a bit less grudgingly in cases where those parents or guardians were members of the faculty. Even if said faculty member basically taught one hour a year, plus surprise visits, and spent the rest of their time dodging their TAs while working on multiple manga series.

Yuuki Mikan was not really aware of any of that. Well, she was well aware that her father was not the most responsible of persons, and could probably have concluded that he couldn't actually do the job he'd been hired to do _and_ do all the work which she knew that he did. (There simply weren't enough hours in the day.) But the twelve year old didn't really concern herself with that sort of thing. She was content, for the most part, with the consequences as they pertained to her - the fact that she could live here, in this nice house, with her family - theoretically - rather than in the dorms.

For the most part. Sometimes, seeing the other girls in her class and their closeness, she wondered whether she might be missing something. But then she came home to this private house, kicked off her shoes and lay down on the couch, heels kicking behind her, to read the manga that her father drew while sucking on a lollipop, and was content.  
She heard the front door open, and then a slow, slow series of footfalls through the hallway leading past the family room, where she was, to the stairs leading up. Thud, thud, thud, went the footsteps on the stairs, heavy sounds which communicated melancholy as no words possibly could.

"Blew it again, didn't you?" she asked without looking up.

A brief pause in the footsteps, followed by a rather rapid thudthudthudthudKER-RASH! Mikan flinched, then peered up to glance into the hallway, seeing her older brother's orangy hair flat against the floor.

"'m all right," his voice said, muffled by the fact that he was facing downward, just as she was about to get up and check on him. He managed to get to his feet without looking directly at her, then turn around and begin trudging back up the stairs. "I'm going to go have a bath," he said in passing.

"Okay," Mikan said. She wasn't entirely sure what possessed her to continue. "If you end up masturbating, remember to clean the tub afterwards, okay?"

ThudthudthudthudthudKER-RASH!

A few seconds, in which Mikan couldn't bring herself to look, and then another, "'m all right."

There were many times in which Mikan hoped she was adopted. This was one of them, if not for the reasons that she normally did so.

* * *

_It's just not fair,_ Rito thought as he grumblingly watched the furo fill with water while he scrubbed himself clean. _I was mentally prepared. I did tons of image training. It's a simple thing to say. 'Sairenji Haruna-san. I like you. Please go out with me.' How hard can it possibly be?  
_  
_Fucking _impossible_, that's how hard!_

And he'd even set it up perfectly this time. He'd been standing, confidently but not arrogantly - because girls hated arrogant guys, no matter what Sawanaga seemed to think - at the school gate, waiting for her as she walked towards it, chatting with some of the girls in their class. He didn't see any of them, of course, his eyes were solely on her.  
Her sweet expression. Her silky black hair. Her gentle manner. Her toned legs. Her firm yet clearly well developed breasts, hidden beneath the uniform blazer and the shirt under it, yet obviously -  
_  
Dammit, I don't want to clean the bathtub! Go down! Dowwwwwn!_

Finishing his scrubbing, he rinsed off and hopped into the tub, hoping that the distraction and warmth would put paid to his little friend, whom he cared about a lot but did not really want to have to deal with right at the moment. He wasn't having any luck with that either, so he decided to think about how everything had gone wrong.

Because it had. He didn't understand it. But it had. Just as Haruna-san's lovely face was ever so slowly turning in his direction, his confidence had completely wilted. Again. And since he couldn't possibly face her without any confidence, lest she laugh at him, and thus kill him, he'd had to dive for cover in the closest set of bushes.

At least this time, he'd had the good fortune to avoid diving into a bush which anyone else had been using for whatever purposes. Like those screwy pink-haired twins, that one time, who'd at least had the courtesy to wait until Haruna-san was out of earshot before beating the living hell out of him for interrupting them. That had been nice of them, considering that they'd clearly been enjoying themselves. _No, no, don't think about that. Don't think about what you saw them doing to each other. Don't think about where their hands were, or -_  
_  
Gah._

The worst part about high school was that everyone seemed to be so much more comfortable about that sort of thing than he was. Maybe they weren't. Maybe they were all faking that confidence. Those girls hadn't been faking any damn thing though. _Don't think about them!_ Still, maybe that was the key. Maybe you had to fake it in order to make it. (He really that was an original idea.)

No, that wasn't the worst part. The really worst part was that he was fairly sure that there were girls in his class, even, who would probably cheerfully give him a tumble for shits and giggles. And sex would be on the agenda, without doubt. But he didn't want any of them. He wanted Haruna-san.  
_  
Ah, hell with it._ He started to rub himself off. The fact that he'd have to scrub the bathtub after he was done, now, was far less important than the fact that this thing wasn't going down and he couldn't just walk around with a boner while his little sister was around. She'd get the wrong idea. So he wanked, occasionally polishing the helmet of his little warrior for variety, feeling the tension grow and grow.

And then the water of the tub began to bubble. _Huh?_ Rito thought. He didn't believe that he'd farted. Still, he was too close to satisfaction to let something like that distract him, and he kept on.

There was a roar, and then, like Venus rising from the waves (yes, that _was_ what he thought; his father was an artist) a naked girl with bright pink hair and brilliant green eyes surged up from the tub before him.

In practically the same instant, his self-ministrations achieved their desired effect. And, utterly unlike Venus rising from the waves, the white substance produced by those ministrations flew up to splatter on the pink-haired girl's face.

They stood there in a tableau for a few moments.

Then the girl's tongue sneaked out from her mouth to sample what had just been sprayed at her. After it retreated, she nodded. "An interesting greeting method," she said.

* * *

Mikan had finally had enough, for the moment, of the adventures of an amiable yet violence-prone lout drawn into a secret war between ghost pirates and magical ninjas, and so she decided to go upstairs to get started on her homework before dinner. The possibility that she might catch Rito as he was coming out of the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist didn't occur to her. It didn't even cross her mind. And if it had, she wouldn't have wanted to see anything like that. And if she did happen to see it, there wouldn't be anything weird about it, because brothers and sisters did that sort of thing all the time without there being any weirdness or uncomfortableness. Nothing odd at -

She heard a high-pitched, almost girlish scream and the sound of pounding feet. Alarmed, she hurried up the stairs and turned the corner to the bathroom to see Rito, towel wrapped around his waist, slamming face first into the wall, his hands clutching at it as if for handholds, as if he was trying to continue his headlong flight up the wall.

"Rito, what in the world -" Mikan started to ask.

"Naked!" he shrieked. "Pink! Pink pink pink! And naked! Girl! Pink naked girl! Gyah!" her older brother concluded.

"What."

"Pink naked girl!" Rito repeated. "In tub! Gyah!" he added, starting to calm down but nowhere even close to a conclusion of that process.

Mikan considered her brother. Very carefully. Solely because she was afraid for his mind, not for any other purpose. And then, very slowly, she turned and walked to the bathroom door and looked in. "This tub?" she asked quietly.

"Yes! Pink naked girl in that tub! Gy- Mikan, why aren't you freaking out?"

"A more phlegmatic disposition than one would expect of someone of my age," she explained. "Also, the complete absence of any girls, regardless of their color or clothing, in the tub."

Somewhat more quickly, Rito came over to look where Mikan was looking, and, indeed, there was a decided lack of girl in the bathroom. "But," Rito protested. "But I saw her! She was right, right there -"

"Okay, Rito?" Mikan said. "I know that you are at a difficult time in your life -"

"Oh, no, Mikan, I'm begging you, don't give me the speech."

She ignored him. "- and you're a little stressed out about the whole thing where you utterly fail to confess to a girl that you like -"

"Please, please, no."

"- and you seem really excited right at the moment -"

"That's - why are you looking there in the first place?" he whined, trying to cover up what the towel didn't quite hide.

"- so I'm just going to pretend this didn't happen, and later, maybe, we can have a little talk about the difference between what we imagine and things that actually happen," she concluded. "Now, I'm gonna do you a little favor, and clean the tub myself, before I take a bath myself. Okay?"

He wanted to protest. He wanted to insist that he wasn't imagining things. But the thought of having someone clean the bath instead of him was just too persuasive. "Okay," Rito said heavily, picked up his clothes from the bathroom floor, and walked away shaking his head.

Mikan promptly took a very cold shower, for no particular reason, and then jumped into the bath without cleaning it.

* * *

_Maybe Mikan is right,_ Rito thought as he trudged down the hallway to his room. _Maybe I did imagine the whole thing. I mean, I was thinking about those crazy pink haired girls, right before it all happened, so it makes a certain amount of sense that I'd imagine something like that._ In a way, the notion that he might be losing his mind was somewhat comforting. It meant he wouldn't have to - or actually, be able to - worry about anything else.

Somewhat cheerfully, he opened the door to his room.

"Oh, hey," said the pink-haired girl who was sitting on his bed, smiling cheerfully at him as she toweled her face and hair. Other than the towel hanging around her neck and not quite reaching far enough down to cover her breasts, she was still completely naked. "I borrowed one of your towels. I hope that's all right."

Rito stared at her. She looked back, still smiling. He blinked. repeatedly. The girl did not vanish. He closed his eyes, rubbed them rather vigorously, and then looked at her through the haze. She was still there.

He took a deep breath. "Would you mind staying right there, not moving a muscle, while I go and get my sister to show you to her so I can make her acknowledge that I'm not actually crazy?"

Now she blinked. "Hum!" she hummed. "Well, that is a very unusual request, but I am imposing on your hospitality. So, no, I wouldn't mind doing that. Although ..." She paused, tilting her head slightly. "... your sister, is she the girl with whom you were speaking earlier, Rito?"

"Yes," he answered automatically. Then he had a realization. "Wait, how do you know my name?"

"I have very good hearing," she said. "So I heard you talking to her while you were in the hallway, and she used that as your name. It is your name, right, not some form of nickname?" When he nodded, she sighed in relief. "I didn't consider until just now that possibility. I do not wish to give any offense while I am imposing on your hospitality. In any event, you might not want to interrupt your sister, Rito, as she's right at the moment engaged in something."

Oh, right, cleaning the tub. "Yes, I suppose so."

She nodded. "I have two younger sisters of my own, and I know that it's important to give them privacy."

He nodded. She nodded back.

"Okay, who the flaming moonbeams are you and how did you get in here?" Rito asked, at last failing to maintain the calm that he'd been keeping until this point.

The girl blinked, and bonked her head softly with a clenched fist while sticking her tongue out. "Oh, I am so embarrassed!" she said, standing up so as to show him every inch of herself, rather than just what he'd been able to see while she was seated. "Here I am, talking about not wishing to give offense, and after you go so far as to greet me and give me your DNA, I have not even had the common courtesy as to introduce myself! My mother would be so mad at me!"

She took a deep breath, and then continued. "I have the honor to be Lala Satalin Deviluke, crown princess of the Empire of Deviluke. Hence the family name," she added, somewhat more softly. "As to how I came here, after you left your bathroom at such speed, I suspected that you might be a bit shy. So as not to offend you, I picked up your towel and departed from that place through its other exit, then came into this room by that entrance." She elaborated by pointing at the window.

"Crown Prin-" Rito started to repeat. "Empire of - okay, maybe I should have been a bit clearer when I asked my question," he said at last.

"It's something we should all strive to achieve," Lala agreed.

He ignored that. "When I said, how did you get in here, I meant, how did you get into this house in the first place?"

"I teleported from the bathroom on our ship to yours," she answered easily. "Um, might I ask a question at this point? I assure you I will strive to be as clear as possible."

"... sure, ask away," Rito said dazedly.

"Where exactly on Earth are we?"

Now he blinked. "Uh ... the town of Mahora, Kantou district, Japan. My house," he added, somewhat unnecessarily.

She nodded as though that explained a few things. "Yes, that explains a few things. After that awfully showy entrance, they would probably have headed to our base in this area to refuel for our journey back to the homeworld," she mused aloud.

"Homeworld?" Rito repeated. That statement combined with the fact that he'd never heard of any Empire of Deviluke to produce a startling conclusion. "Are you ... are you from another planet?"

"Yes, the planet your people know as Kinsei, or Venus as it's somewhat more widely known," she confirmed. "I'm sorry, were you under the impression that you and I are of the same species? Have you not noticed this?" She turned slightly, giving him a clear view of her rear ... though Rito's eyes were quickly drawn up to notice the long, thin _tail_, colored considerably darker than the rest of her flesh, which stretched from her lower back and terminated with what looked like a heart.

He stared, then forced himself to look up at her face. "Would you please put some clothes on?" he asked weakly.

"I would love to do so!" she said cheerfully.

They stood there staring at each other for several moments.

"So ..." Rito asked.

"So?" she asked right back. "I mean, I think it is rather obvious that I don't have any with me, so I was assuming that was an offer to lend me some. You are very generous soul, Rito."

A few moments later, after briefly considering and discarding abortive plans to borrow clothes from Mikan's room (too small for her, likely to provoke terrible retribution) or from his mother's closet in his parent's room (potentially booby-trapped), Rito settled for instructing Lala in a method of wrapping the towel she'd borrowed around herself so as to preserve her non-existent modesty. It was a little disturbing to see the way that she treated this as a great discovery.

"You are not only generous, you clearly know where your towel is, Rito," she told him as she sat down on his bed again.

"Huh?" he said, then shook his head. "No, never mind that. Wait ... if you're an alien, why do you speak perfect Japanese?"

"'If'?" Lala said, arcing an eyebrow. "Would you like a sample of my DNA to confirm it?"

"Nononono."

She looked a little put out. "Well, anyway. I actually don't speak a word of your language. There are microbes in my brain that translate everything."

"... okay, that makes no sense whatsoever," Rito said flatly. "How would microbes in your brain let you talk in a language you don't know?"

Lala looked at him admiringly. "And you're clever, too! Yes, I'm sorry, that was what we might call a lie. The microbes are real, but they're only part of a very complicated set of implants that facilitate our communication. I'd love to explain more, but I suspect you probably don't have the right background in biotechnology, neurology, and paraphysics to really understand the principles. Am I wrong about that?" she asked hopefully.

Rito rubbed his face. "Microbes," he said, absently. "Got it."

She smiled sunnily. "Don't let it worry you."

"Okay. So. You teleported here. From a spaceship which had landed somewhere in this area." It was sort of scary, how easily he found it to accept that. "Why did you do that?" he asked.

Lala blinked. "Well, obviously, I wanted to leave, and that seemed the quickest way to do so. So I used this number that I started building a while ago." She held up her left wrist, around which was a thin metal bracelet that Rito hadn't noticed before. "I call it Pyon-Pyon Warp-Kun," she pronounced proudly. "I'm still working out the bugs in the navigation software, so the destination is largely randomized, and I'm sure that with a little work I can extend the range beyond a few percentiles of a light second, but it works rather nicely."

"Pyon - this is a translation problem, isn't it?" Rito asked, changing directions abruptly. "It sounds different in your language. Hopefully not quite so ridiculous?"

"Hey!" she said, frowning.

"Sorry, sorry," he said, blushing as he realized that he'd accidentally insulted her. He had a feeling that this girl was trouble with a capital T, but even if that wasn't the case, it was probably best not to antagonize her. And as he was thinking this, it occurred to Rito that this might be the longest conversation he'd ever had with a member of the opposite sex, other than Mikan.

That odd realization drove him to try and extend it. "Um, so why didn't you just, I don't know, walk off the ship?"

"Well, the people who were holding me captive there would probably have objected," she said, then blinked. "Didn't I mention that part?"

"No," Rito said, panic starting to well up again. "No, I can safely say that you didn't mention that you were escaping captivity. Ah, if it's not too much to ask, why were you being held captive?"

"Well, mostly because it was the job of the people on the ship to hold me captive," she answered. "I don't hold it against - oh. That's not what you meant, is it?"

Rito shook his head rapidly.

"Sorry. Well, to answer the question that's implied by that question ..." Lala said, then trailed off, tilting her head to one side. "... when you get right down to it, I'm not sure why someone takes up the job of being a pursuer," she said. "It's dangerous, difficult work at the best of times, and while the rewards are - Rito, why are you slamming your head against the wall like that?"

Before he could answer that, Rito was completely distracted when a small object, moving at a speed that made it hard for him to make out any of its features, flew in the window. "Lala-sama!" it said, in a voice which (to Rito) sounded like a synthesized version of an elderly British lady's voice. "Thank the Fairest and Fallen that I was able to find you so quickly!"

"Ah, Peke!" Lala said, managing to sound at once pleased, surprised and yet also somehow worried.

The flying thing began station-keeping in front of her face, allowing Rito to get a good look at it. To his eyes, it vaguely resembled a tiny human being, in a suit, with bat wings on its back, but with its head replaced with a white globe on which someone had drawn squiggles which vaguely echoed eyes, a bit like the teru teru bozu that he and Mikan had made when she was much younger and still believed in that sort of thing.

"- and after I realized what you must have done, Lala-sama, it was simple to attune my sensors to detect the Cherenkov radiation produced by Pyon-Pyon Warp-Kun, thus telling me exactly where you were," it was saying. "And in the confusion which your disappearance from the vessel provoked, I was able to quickly make my escape!"

Lala was starting to frown. "How quickly?" she asked.

"Um, Lala?" Rito asked.

The flying creature swivelled in mid air so that its 'face' was turned to look at Rito. "Lala-sama, who is this rather dull-looking creature?" it asked.

"Peke," Lala said sternly, "that will do. This is Rito, a very clever, very generous person whose hospitality I am presently enjoying. You should not insult him unnecessarily. And I should not do so either, by failing to introduce you to him. Rito, this is Peke, my robot valet."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Peke said, in a tone which would probably better serve the words, "Hurry up and die."

"Of course it is," Rito said, feeling the headache he'd felt earlier coming back.

Lala smiled abruptly, and clapped her hands. "And it's a good thing that Peke has arrived, because now I can heed your earlier request!"

"Huh?" Rito asked.

"Lala-sama, I begin to wonder whether you might have rushed to judgement by declaring the creature clever," Peke said.

"Don't be silly, Peke, I never rush to judgement," Lala replied, letting the towel drop and exposing herself fully to Rito, who promptly panicked and threw a hand over his eyes. By some horrible twist of fate, however, the fingers of the hand were spread widely enough that one of his eyes had a clear sight of her all the same.

"Okay, Peke, do your thing!" Lala said, posing in a way that made her firm breasts jiggle as she pointed towards the ceiling.

"Yes, Lala-sama!" the robot replied. "Change: Dressform!" With a surge of brilliant light and what sounded like tinny music to Rito's ears, Peke's body transformed into coils of material which wrapped tightly around Lala's body, making her squeal a bit at the pressure, before they seemed to explode outward again as she spun around and stood revealed in a mostly-white skin-tight costume, along with a big hat that had bat wings extending from its sides and Peke's "eyes" painted on it.

Rito stared at her through his eyes. Slowly, he let his hand fall. "Okay," he said, after a moment. "You're a magical girl, aren't you?"

Lala's face went very stiff. "Rito," she said, very coldly. "I am going to choose to believe that that was another instance of what you called a translation problem, this time on my side. Because I don't really want to believe that someone as friendly and kind as you have been so far would insult me so terribly as you just did."

"Shall we kill him and all who know him, Lala-sama?" Peke asked eagerly.

"Uhhh," Rito said. "Yeah, it must be a translation problem. I didn't mean anything -"

"That's good. That's _very_ good. There is no such thing as magic, Rito, and all phenomena can be scientifically examined and explained," she continued. "So, no, I am not what you just said. No, we will not kill him, Peke. Not over a simple misunderstanding. And while we are on the subject of misunderstandings, did you say that you were able to easily escape from their vessel?"

"Yes, it was simple to do so," Peke said eagerly, just as eagerly as she'd (?) suggested killing Rito. "They were overcome with confusion by your disappearance, Lala-sama."

"Orrrr possibly feigning it so that you would be able to make your escape and fly directly to my current location, thus leading them right to me?" she asked.

There was a brief silence.

"In my defense," said Peke at last, "you programmed me to be loyal, not clever."

"So I did," Lala admitted. "I'm sorry, Rito. I hope your house won't be too badly damaged by what's about to happen."

"What?" Rito shrieked.

Before the echoes of that panicked yelp had quite subsided, they were already there - a pair of incredibly tall men, both of them dressed in black suits and dark glasses, more than a bit reminiscent of the agents in a movie Rito had seen once, on either side of Lala. But perhaps owing to the rather traumatic way that Lala's tail had been pointed out to him, his eyes were immediately drawn down to the back of the one facing away from him, and noting a tail just like hers. Well, not quite like hers - lacking the heart-shape on its tip.

"So here you are," said the agent facing away from him, clearly addressing Lala, who was looking up with an expression which suggested more annoyance than anything else. "Please be advised that our instructions were to treat you with every courtesy ... _unless_ you attempted to escape from custody, in which case you were to be confined and separated from anything you might use as part of a second escape attempt. Including this valet of yours."

The agent punctuated that remark by grabbing Lala's upper arm and yanking it in a way that Rito had to admit looked rather painful. Lala's face tensed, but she did not cry out.

"Order it to remove itself from your person and shut down," the agent continued. "Or we will be forced to take action against it."

Lala was starting to struggle against his grip, but Rito wasn't really paying attention anymore. He had slipped into a mild fugue when he realized that the second agent, the one who was standing behind Lala and thus facing him, wasn't actually keeping an eye on Rito. He was simply standing by in the event that Lala did break free. Nobody involved in this seemed to be paying him any attention at the moment. As though he was completely irrelevant to the matter at hand.  
_  
Well,_ Rito thought. _They're not really wrong about that. This doesn't have anything to do with me. 'Pursuers', she called them. These guys look like cops, sort of. Cops or secret agent types. If they're chasing her, they have to have a reason to be chasing her, don't they? She said they were doing their job, after all._  
_  
What do I really know about this girl? She shows up, scares the crap out of me, embarrasses me, gets ticked off at being called a magical girl. That's it. Considering all of this, for all I know, she could be some kind of galactic criminal. That even makes sense with what's going on. So this doesn't have anything to do with me, _and_ for all I know, Lala deserves exactly what she's getting. Really, I should just make a discrete exit, go see Mikan, get a lecture about separating reality from fantasy, and keep my mouth shut. That's what I ought to do._

(Excuse me while I insert an interlude. It has been said, and fairly, that one of the distinguishing features of our reality is that people here tend to make very bad decisions. Yuuki Rito is about to make one such bad decision, a choice which will in many ways ruin his life and place him in constant danger from this point forward. And yet it can honestly be said that this is the decision that almost any Yuuki Rito would make under these circumstances. Whether this means that Yuuki Ritos across the continuum are as big of an idiot as this particular example is hard to say.)

Rito sighed. _Craaaap._

He dashed forward, and saw that his suspicion about the second agent were correct - he wasn't paying Rito any attention, not even once Rito passed Lala and the agent as they struggled against each other on his way to the soccer ball which was resting on the floor. As soon as his foot was adjacent to the ball, he whirled and slammed a sharp kick into it, sending it flying into the first agent's face with enough force to knock the alien strongman back a pace, and startling him (and his colleague) sufficiently to make him release his grip on Lala's arm for a moment.

A moment was all that Rito needed. Moving perpindicular to his earlier vector, he dashed towards Lala and grabbed her hand in passing. "Let's go!" he shouted as he jumped out the window onto the roof, pulling her along wth him as he started running towards the edge of that roof, then jumping across to that of the neighboring house, like a burglar in a period drama.

It was perhaps well for Rito that he didn't dare to look behind him. Had he done so, he would have seen Lala's face go through several startling emotions - amazement that this mortal was risking his life like this, respect for his surprising courage, speculative wonder as she glanced at his shoulders and rump, and finally a rather crafty look.  
_  
This,_ Lala thought, _has potential._

* * *

"I know, I know," said Sairenji Haruna as she brushed and petted Maru's hair while he yelped at the window of her room. "You'd like to go out for a walk, and I'd like to take you out for a walk. But not after dark. We can't go out after dark anymore. It's not safe."

At least, that was the rationale her older sister had claimed when she laid down the law to her, more than a year ago. There had been several incidents of girls being attacked at Mahora, and she would have liked to believe that her older sister had been solely motivated by concern for their welfare. She really would.

But if she'd been concerned for her safety, why had she insisted that they both stay here, in the house, when the school had been closed and the town evacuated?

Of course, she knew the real reason. It was the same real reason that she couldn't have friends over, rather than the excuse she always gave - that her sister had been working late and needed to sleep during the day, so even if they promised to be quiet, her friends couldn't visit. It was the same real reason she couldn't stay over at a friend's house. It was the same real reason behind everything.

Sometimes she thought she'd been freer before -

But of course that wasn't true. And she was ... happy about this. Even if her sister seemed tense and unhappy all the time, and spent most of her time down in the basement. Where Haruna would never go.

But she would have liked to take her dog for walks, sometimes. She looked out the window at the night sky, and sighed.  
And that was when she saw a boy with orange hair running along rooftops like a burglar in a period drama, dragging a pink-haired girl behind him, being chased by a pair of men in black.

Haruna blinked.

Yes. She had seen that.

And thinking a little, she realized that she knew who the boy was. "Yuuki-kun?" she asked no one in particular. Her classmate, the one who kept diving into bushes whenever she was around.

What in the world was going on, here?

* * *

There are moments where one realizes an absurdity, often long after experiencing it - traditionally, once one is stranding in front of a refrigerator, at home, after the movie has ended. And then there are moments where one realizes an absurdity as one is experiencing it, and finds it amusing. And then there are moments where one realizes an absurdity as one is experiencing it, and finds nothing about it even remotely funny.

"Wait a minute, Lala," Rito shouted as he ran along the rooftop, frighteningly aware of the fact that a rather large gap between buildings was coming up rather shortly. "You've got that, that Pyon-Pyon Warp-kun thing, right?"

Lala rather smoothly caught up with Rito, just as they were coming up to the aforementioned gap, scooped him up in her arms and bounded calmly into space. "Yes, but it will take about four thousandths of a day to recharge after its last use!"

Rito would have done some quick math, but he was too busy gaping in sheer astonishment as, helped a bit by the wings on her hat, Lala came down on the ground as light as a feather and took off running, lowering his feet to the ground to encourage him to join her. "That's not much time at all!" he said as he did so. "What's the -"

"No, sorry, messed up!" she answered. "That's a fraction of a Venerian day, not a Tellurian one. A bit more than twenty-four of your hours!"

"Ah, crap!"

* * *

As it happened, in a town like Mahora, under the present circumstances, people running around on rooftops was the sort of thing that got noticed. And not everyone who notices it had as much discretion, or as many reasons to avoid official scrutiny, as Sairenji Haruna. So as Rito and Lala ran from the pursuers, and the pursuers ... well, pursued them, said pursuers were themselves being followed.

But quietly. And discretely.

A bit like a shadow, in fact.

"Oneesama, are we just going to let these people do whatever they want?"

"So far, they aren't hurting anyone, and they did file a report with the administration saying that they were going to be chasing a fugitive here. So for the moment, we're just observing. Besides, I'm ... uncomfortable in this outfit you have me wearing. So battle is probably a bad idea."

"But they're - gyah! That guy just threw a truck at them! We can't just let that happen!"

"... technically, he threw it _in front_ of them, so -"

* * *

Having a truck drop out of the sky in front of one, blocking all possible routes of escape, was not the sort of thing that Rito had ever expected to happen. Of course, needing routes of escape was not the sort of thing that Rito had ever expected to happen. Teeth clenched, he turned to face the pursuers.

"Okay, you bastards!" he cried, holding up his fists. "Don't come one step closer or you'll face the wrath of Rito! I'm a tenth dan master of ... of ... of _everything_ and you're gonna be in a world of hurt!"

Lala blinked. "Rito, I must note that a talent for lying plausible lies cannot be found among your many qualities."

He found himself sweating profusely at that. Still, perhaps they hadn't heard her. That might explain why the pursuers came to a halt a short distance away. This fragile illusion was dispelled the moment the one who had been doing all the talking so far began to speak. "Lala-sama. This is pointless. Please cease these attempts to run away from home."

"I refuse!" Lala said, her jaw firm.

"... run away from home?" Rito said, his own rather loose.

"I am weary with the marriage meetings father keeps arranging for me," Lala continued, showing no sign of noticing Rito's ever-so-slow turn to look incredulously towards her. "They are universally unpleasant persons! And the sex is awful!"

"What," Rito said.

"But this is the will of your father, and -" said the pursuer.

"Fie upon the will of my father! Fie fie!" Lala retorted. "I have come here, and I have found sanctuary with this fine young man, who is generous, clever and brave! And I have shared his salt!" she added, smiling angrily.

Rito blinked. _... shared his salt?_ he thought. And then, quite abruptly, he remembered something his mother, a world traveller, had mentioned to him, about how in Arabic countries, hospitality was expressed by offering someone salt. _Oh, that's what she means._

It came to him, though, that Lala hadn't eaten anything in his house.  
_  
Oh, wait. That's not quite true,_ he realized, just as he realized that the pursuers, who had continued to basically ignore him, were now turning rather hostile expressions in his direction.

_And there,_ thought Lala as the pursuers' attention turned off of her and onto Rito, _is my opening._

Like most Devilukeans, the pursuers didn't deal well with things that they weren't expecting. How else to explain how something like having a football kicked at one of their faces - an attack that couldn't possibly do any physical damage - left them flat-footed long enough for Rito to drag her out of the window and get this chase started. The only reason that she hadn't been able to exploit that moment of weakness and uncertainty was, she ruefully realized, that she was also like most Devilukeans, and had been as surprised by the development as they.

But a distraction she'd chosen herself, one that had been carefully planned over the last few minutes? Oh, that she was more than ready to exploit.

Her right arm swept out, and, from a hidden panel in that arm's sleeve, into her hand shot the single most important weapon in her arsenal. She'd heard that human technicians had devised a method of communication which vaguely resembled her weapon, a 'cell phone', and puzzled over the connection between that device and the basic structural and functional unit of all living organisms. But she was certain that no device built by human hands could make the sorts of calls she could.

A single button press was all it took, but since there were formalities to be observed, she called it out all the same. "Go Go Vacuum-kun!" she cried.

The look of sheer mortal terror on the faces of the pursuers as they jerked their heads back to regard her instead of Rito was incredibly satisfying, as was the panicked cry of, "No, not one of her inventions!" that burst from one of their lips, as the device materialized from subspace, hovering in mid-air. Her legend was clearly growing. That was nice. She'd said that she didn't blame them for what they'd done, and she hadn't. But they should not have laid hands on her. In the words of an acquaintance of hers, they should know their place.

To Rito's eyes, the _thing_ that appeared out of nowhere looked like a weird combination of an octopus and a balloon. All that he could do was stare at it in shock. And then a roaring noise that he found naggingly familiar began to come from its insides. Without any more warning than that, the two pursuers were pulled off of their feet and yanked through the air towards what looked like the octopus' mouth.  
_  
... oh,_ Rito realized. _It's a vacuum cleaner, just like she said._

Then he realized that he was also being pulled off his feet and dragged towards the device's mouth in the exact same way, as were assorted pieces of the landscape, like trash cans, innocently passing-by cats, branches of trees, _trees_ -

"Lala!" he shrieked. "Turn this crazy thing off!"

"Hm. Yeah. An off switch _would_ be a good addition to make to the next version," she said speculatively. She was not being pulled towards the device's mouth. Rather, she was hovering in mid-air, with the bat wings of her hat beating furiously to keep her stationary. "That's good feedback, Rito, you're very helpful!"

"What?" he shrieked. As mute testimony to how crazy the situation was becoming, now he was seeing weird costumes flying towards the vacuum's nozzle. Just the costumes. No people in them. He was clearly losing what was left of his mind.

* * *

"Greaaat idea, those costumes, Mei."

"Oh, shut up and hold on to the tree and hope that it's well-rooted, oneesama."

* * *

And then Rito saw that he was going to go in the mouth of the vacuum. _Well,_ he thought. _I knew that it was a bad idea. I've never really given much thought to how I wanted to die, but if I have to, I guess dying for an inexplicable impulse to look heroic in front of a pretty girl has to be a good way to go._

He would probably have gone on further in that fashion if he hadn't been drawn into the nozzle, just as the device's 'bag' reached its maximum capacity for expansion.

And so exploded.

A half hour later, Rito woke up in a tree. Not under it. Bent over one of the branches, hands and legs danging beneath it. Slowly, with great difficulty, he raised his head to look around.

Lala was hovering nearby, watching him with great interest. "Oh good," she said, smiling brightly. "I was wondering when you were going to wake up."

"Don't you mean, if?" he asked, much more quietly than the usually spoke.

Now she blinked, as though his statement confused her. "Oh. Oh, no, Rito. I knew that wouldn't happen. I don't invent things that can kill people permanently."

"What?" he asked.

"That would be wrong," she said, as though to a small, not terribly clever child.

"No, what do you mean -"

"I'm glad that you woke up when you did," Lala continued, completely overpowering his fragmentary question. "I really have to get going, before the pursuers regain consciousness, too, and I'm not sure when we'll be able to talk again. I suspect I might have to leave the area, since there are probably going to be some people who'll want to have some words with me about this situation, and I don't really want to talk to them. Even if they are rather cute, the way that they hide completely ineffectively over there," she added, with a glance in a direction that lay more or less behind Rito at the moment.

"Oh," he said, since he had no idea what to say.

"So, thank you for trying to help me," she said, smiling winsomely at him. "I really appreciate your generosity, your cleverness, and your courage. Until we meet again."

And with that, she was flying away from him.

"... could you pay me back by helping me down from here?" Rito asked, very conscious of the fact that he sort of sounded like a whiner, but uncertain of how he was supposed to extricate himself from this rather precarious position. Unfortunately, by the time that he spoke up, Lala was already out of earshot.

"Figures," he said, once he realized that.

* * *

Somehow, he got down. Somehow, he managed to limp his way down the streets that led back to his house. Somehow, he made it to the door, and got it open ... to find Mikan sitting in the foyer, putting on her shoes as though she was about to go out looking for him.

"Rito!" she gasped as she saw his injuries. "What in the world -"

Moving more quickly than he thought he could manage under the circumstances, Rito held up his hand. "Mikan," he said. "You are my little sister. My only little sister. I probably care about you more than anyone else on this planet. So I will never deliberately lie to you. Ever. So if you ask me something like 'what happened to you', 'what was all that noise in your room', 'why weren't you in your room when I went to go look for you', or that sort of thing, I will tell you the whole strange story."

Mikan started to open her mouth.

"And _then_ you will start thinking your older brother is a filthy liar," he concluded.

She closed it.

"I think I'm just going to go to bed, now," he said.

And he did.

* * *

The planet Venus hides many secrets. Until space probes revealed its surface, the human imagination had populated it with jungles and dinosaurs. The revelation of the Venus' true nature - swept by winds faster than any Earthly hurricane, volcanically hot, and subject to immense atmospheric pressure - had put paid to such dreams. Which was perhaps ironic, since the jungles and dinosaurs _were_ there; just not on the surface, but in climate controlled, well-shielded caverns beneath it.

Of course, there were also cities and towns and farms and castles within those caverns, all carefully protected from the hellish surface of the planet. Life, in a variety of forms, had found a way to survive. And yet, at the back of every sapient mind on the planet was the question of whether those protections would truly be enough. Everyone of them had heard the tales of what happened when the shielding failed on one of the mightiest kingdoms only a decade earlier.

There was nothing there, now.

Though the people of Venus could distract themselves with the burdens of their day-to-day lives, or, in the case of the very wealthy among them, with almost endless hedonism and petty scheming, the question of whether that could happen to them could not be ignored.

Certainly thoughts of the great heat and immense pressure of the surface were very central to the thoughts of Zastin, the highest ranking soldier in the army of Deviluke. He was considering how such an immolation might actually be preferable to what he was enduring now, after having reported on the findings of the pursuers he had sent to retrieve his nation's wayward crown princess. Quite a bit after he had reported, to be honest.

The Emperor, Gid Lucion Deviluke, had been expressing his dissatisfaction for some time.

"A human!" he roared, returning to the central theme of his outrage. "She dallies with a human! Generations of carefully nurtured breeding, out the airlock, for what?! What?! A mayfly romance?! Curse the girl! Curse her intelligence, curse her stubbornness, curse every wondrous thing about her! ARRRRRRRRRGH!" he punctuated.

Far below the throne where his sovereign was presently ranting, Zastin knelt, and waited his orders. And thought of heat and pressure.

"Zastin!" the Emperor finally barked. "You will go Earth, retrieve Lala and destroy the town where this 'Rito' person lives, killing everyone who might possibly have witnessed this shame!"

"By your command," Zastin said. Inwardly, he groaned. He was sure that this sort of thing was how things had started to go wrong for the Urursei. But his master's commands were absolute, and so he rose and marched towards the throne room's only exit.

"Hold," the Emperor said.

This command, too, was absolute, and Zastin managed to hold back a sigh of relief as he believed that he heard the return of sanity to his master's voice.

After a moment, the Emperor let out a sigh. "No," he said. "No, I countermand my earlier order. It was given by an outraged father, not the Emperor of countless souls."

"It is well for those souls that you excel in both roles, my liege," Zastin said, to fill the space after that remark.

"Your comment is praised for its loyalty and condemned for its extreme fatuity, Zastin," the Emperor said dryly.

Since Zastin wasn't entirely sure what fatuity was, he simply bowed in acceptance of the rebuke.

"It is obvious that Lala is trying to provoke me with this," the Emperor mused. "So I shall not respond to her provocation. Rather, I will give her space, and in time she will grow bored with her new toy, and move on - and then we will retrieve her. What matter what the mayflies remember? We can afford discretion. And patience. Return to your duties, order your subordinates to maintain a watch over her, and do nothing more,"

Rejoicing inwardly as he had earlier been groaning inwardly, Zastin bowed once more before he swirled his cape and made his exit. _No war today,_ he thought happily. _Always a good thing._

"Zastin," said a voice from behind him.

Cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck, as he felt a fear he had not felt while kneeling before the outraged form of the Emperor of his nation. Slowly he turned. "Yes, your Imperial Highness?" he asked of the Empress, who stood in the shadows of the corridor leading from the Emperor's throne room.

"The Emperor has commanded you to go to Earth and retrieve Lala, I believe," she said.

"He countermanded those orders," Zastin observed, hoping that this contradiction did not constitute _lese majeste_. As the definition of that crime lay strictly in the hands of the majesty in question, he had cause for concern.

"Yes, he changes his mind easily," the Empress mused, as though she was only thinking out loud. "It would be a shame if he were to change his mind back again without informing you, wouldn't it? Whereas if you were to obey his first command, you would be viewed as having correctly anticipated his changing moods. Rather admirable, don't you think?"

Zastin swallowed. "If he were to change his mind -" he said.

"Or if it were to be changed for him," the Empress interjected.

This was intrigue. It ill-suited Zastin's simple soul. He wanted nothing more than to run far far away. Earth seemed like a safe distance. And since he was going there anyway - "Indeed, your Imperial Highness," he agreed, and backed away, never taking his eyes off of her for a moment.

She only smiled at him until he was out of sight.

Phase One was well under way. Now to contact the worthy Ghee Bree and inform him of the girl's antics, so that he would move things even further towards Phase Two ...

* * *

A good night's sleep was supposed to make everything better, so Rito found the next day, as he slowly walked to school plainly bandaged and in ill-humor, to be terribly wrong. Nothing had been made better. He was in pain, he was humiliated, and his faith in the order of the universe had been terribly shaken.

And there was no compensation. In stories he'd heard, when bad things happened to a person, there was usually some good mixed in with it. The hero suffered a loss, but it spurred him on to greater victories later. Nothing like that was happening. He hadn't won any boon from what he'd gone through. Nothing that he'd experienced would help him in any way.

(Or so he thought, and then there was a flicker of memory, reminding him of Lala's smile as she thanked him and called him brave, and generous, and clever. But he shook his head to clear it of such idle nonsense thoughts.)

So he walked slowly down the street to school, for yet another day of questionable education and the destruction of his hopes and dreams.

"Good morning, Yuuki-kun," said a voice from his side.

Rito froze. He knew that voice. He _knew_ that voice. But it was utterly impossible for the person who owned that voice to be talking to him, to be greeting him. Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised his head as he turned to look at her.

It was impossible. And yet, there she was. Sairenji Haruna was looking at him. Sairenji Haruna was _talking_ to him. Okay, things weren't quite as he'd always envisioned them. She had a weird, sort of puzzled frown on her face, rather than her usual gentle smile, but the point was, her eyes were on him. She was acknowledging his existence.

Abruptly, Rito realized that this was it. This was the compensation for all the trouble he'd endured last night. After all that, how could he possibly still lack the confidence to say what he felt? In the face of a hostile universe, what was the point of hesitating to express one's true feelings? He drew in a deep breath, closed his eyes and braced himself.

"Yuuki-kun," Haruna said, not really noticing these preparations. "I'm not really sure how to ask you this, but -" _what in the world were you doing last night, running around on rooftops with that girl?_ she would have asked, but she paused as she felt a shadow fall on her.

"I LIKE YOU! PLEASE GO OUT WITH ME!" Rito cried out, bowing deeply. _I said it!_ he thought happily. _I said it! Nothing can possibly go wrong now!_

"Okay," said a voice in response.

Rito froze. That was not Haruna-san's voice. But he knew that voice. He _knew_ that voice. For the second time in just a short while, he found himself slowly raising his head.

"I mean, we should probably go out from time to time, since we won't be able to spend all our time in bed together," said Lala, smiling happily. "And I'll have to go out when I'm going to school with you."

"Eh?" said Haruna, looking at the girl who'd unceremoniously stepped between her and Rito. "Who -"

"Oh, hi there," said Lala, as though noticing her for the first time. "I'm Lala! Rito and I are lovers and will be living together from now on. Are you a friend of his? I hope you'll also be a friend of mine, then?" She smiled sweetly.

"Oh," said Haruna, and then, to Rito's extreme horror, she nodded politely and began to step away. "Yes, that would explain it, then. Um. I hope you'll be very happy together, then." One more polite smile in Rito's direction, and then she was walking away from him.

"She seems like a very nice person, Rito," Lala told him.

"..." Rito replied.

"That didn't translate all that well," she admitted.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, almost tearfully. "What is this about living together, and going to school, and -"

"Oh," she said, nodding. "I suppose it's understandable that you wouldn't have been informed. You see, while I was heading away from where I left you, last night, I ran into a friend of a friend. Actually, a family member of a friend - well, to call her a friend might be a bit much, but - well, you get the idea."

"No," Rito said. "Not really."

* * *

_The previous night_

Lala hadn't gotten very far from where she'd left Rito - though she _was_ out of earshot of his quietly-voiced request, or she would probably have turned back to help him down from the tree - before she realized that she was being observed. And not by associates of the pathetic but vaguely cute girls who'd been observing her encounter with the pursuers; at least, she doubted it. By someone who might conceivably be a true threat to her designs.

On the other hand, it might be possible to turn that threat into an asset.

Opportunity or problem, it was something she couldn't ignore, so after a cursory examination of her surroundings, she descended from her flightpath to the plaza where the dark-skinned girl in frilly black clothes was standing before a streetcar. In silence, the two girls in chromatically opposite dress regarded each other for a few moments.

"Zazie Rainyday, I presume," Lala said at last.

The other nodded acknowledgement that the presumption was a correct one, and then spoke in a much quieter voice than Lala's. "Lala Satalin," she stated ... omitting any mention of the royal clan name. The implication was obvious.

For the moment, Lala ignored that veiled insult. "I know your sister well," she said.

"You know her as well as she allows you to know her," Zazie replied, looking away.

Which was true, but could perhaps have been said a bit less baldly. Still, the girl had clearly scored a point, and it should be acknowledged. And it was, for Lala nodded and kept silent, allowing Zazie to make the next move.

For a while, it seemed that no move would be made. Then, at last, Zazie spoke. "May I ask your intentions here?"

"Yes," Lala replied cheerfully, pleased that the other was making this so easy.

After a moment, Zazie gave a quiet sigh. "Very well. What are your intentions here?"

Counting the score at one all, Lala replied, "I am leaving this place. I may return eventually, but for now, I think I must take my leave of it. I am charting a course separate from that of my father, and it makes little sense to remain in a place which offers sanctuary to his servants."

"Indeed. And your plans -?"

"Are my plans," Lala said, nearly as quietly as Zazie had spoken.

Zazie was silent, and now Lala judged them scored at two to one - until the other girl spoke again. "And you know, of course, of the various cabals, and schemers, and malefactors in this part of the world, all of whom will have plans that might impinge upon your own?" Her tone was deliberately casual.

Lala flinched, and awarded her interlocutor another point. "No," she confessed, for there was a time to conceal and a time to reveal. "I have spent most of my time on this sphere in the land called California. As I understand, there are ties between that place and this, but - my researches were interrupted before I could learn all that I would wish."

"I am sorry to hear that," Zazie said in a tone which conveyed very little in the way of sorrow. "But I should note that you suffer under a misapprehension when it comes to the relationship between this campus and your father's agents. They are permitted to act here as long as they do not, without good reason, inconvenience the students here."

Lala frowned. Well, that was obvious. And it didn't change -

And then she saw it.

"... why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"You are here for a reason," Zazie answered.

Of course it would be something like that. "It is a coincidence," Lala replied dismissively.

"There are no coincidences, only necessity," Zazie stated.

"Whose necessity?" Lala asked - then, before Zazie could answer, continued, "No, never mind. I am not interested in your religion."

Zazie shrugged in response. "Are you interested in fine food?" she asked. "We might better discuss this matter on a full stomach."

It came to Lala that she had not eaten in nearly a day, and that the air of freedom, while bracing, was not as appetizing as all that. So she simply nodded, and stepped forward as Zazie tapped on the closed shutters of the streetcar. They slid open, and a smiling female human in a chef's hat was waiting to serve delicious smelling soup.

It was, in fact, the most delicious soup she had ever tasted.

* * *

"And that's what happened," Lala concluded, having given a somewhat abbreviated account of these events to Rito. Well, abbreviated except when it came to describing the soup, as she'd gone to great lengths elaborating upon how wonderful it had tasted. Since Rito had had the opportunity to sample the Chao Bao Zi's offerings in the past, he was more understanding of this than you might expect.

"So ... you're going to be going to school here," Rito said.

Lala nodded cheerfully.

"... how does that lead to you living with me?" he asked.

"Well, Rito, you did offer me your hospitality yesterday, and I have eaten your salt," she reminded him.

As Rito blanched, two girls walked past him, one of whom was in his class. One of them looked up at that remark. "What did that girl just say?" she asked her friend, who was pulling her rapidly along with her.

"Never mind, Sekai-chan," replied the other one, rather petite with an odd look in her eyes. "It's better to ignore such people."

"... Setsuna, since when did you call me 'Sekai-chan'?"

"Okay, please don't say that sort of thing in public," Rito finally said, once he'd regained as much of his composure as he was likely to regain.

"Very well," Lala replied, mystified as ever by the strange taboos of the Earth-folk, but willing to abide by them. "Since you are my local contact, it only makes sense that I stay with you. Don't you think?"

"I don't think it really matters what I think," Rito admitted wearily. "Well, anyway, you can't go to school dressed like that, you're going to have to wear the uniform."

"'Uniform'?" Lala repeated, again mystified.

Rito had the distinct feeling that this was the start of not only a long day, but a whole series of them. And he was, of course, correct.

**NEXT: Haruhi.**


	3. Chapter 3

Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu___ was created by Tanigawa Nagaru and Noizi Ito. _Boku wa Tomodachi ga Sukunai_was created by Hirasaka Yomi and Buriki. _To-LOVE-Ru___ was created by Hasemi Saki and Yabuki Kentaro. _School Days___ and associated properties were created by 0verflow. Other series parodied here were created by other authors. This is parody, protected speech._

**Diabolical Styles**  
**Chapter 3: Haruhi**

The girl standing at the head of the class, resplendent in a Mahora uniform and smiling brightly, had a tail. Despite her pink hair, blue eyes, and ... other attributes ... one's eye was inevitably drawn towards the long black tail that poked out from her lower back and flowed down past her skirt and legs. It had been plainly visible as she wrote her name on the board, in both Roman characters and hiragana.

Kodaka could almost feel the laser-like intensity of Haruhi's gaze coming from where she was presently sitting behind him, directed towards the tailed girl. It was strange. He'd known her for only a few weeks, only spoken to her in the last two days, and yet he already felt that he knew her well enough to be experiencing profound dread at the thought of that intensity.

And then, as it must, the worst occurred. Honekawa-sensei finished the usual spiel about welcoming this visitor to our shores and showing her the utmost courtesy, and asked the horrific question, "Does anyone have any questions for our new transfer student?"

Haruhi shot up. Her hand _was_ raised, and Honekawa-sensei was on the verge of saying her name when she snapped out her words. "Deviluke-san -"

"I prefer to be called Lala," said the new transfer student cheerfully.

"Don't care," Haruhi replied. "Are you an alien?"

"Yes," Lala replied honestly. "Well, technically, from my perspective, all of you are the aliens, but I -"

Haruhi made a disgusted noise. "No, you're not."

Now Lala blinked. "Excuse me?"

"No, you're not," Haruhi repeated as she sat down rather heavily. "A real alien would never casually admit it like that. They'd hide it, pretend to be ordinary, and only reveal it to a closely chosen circle of trusted associates. You're obviously just a girl who hasn't grown out of some delusional fantasy you came up with back in junior high. To the point where you engage in cosplay while at school." She shook her head in obvious dismay.

Now Lala was staring at Haruhi with a comparable intensity. "You are a sad, strange young woman, and you have my pity," she declared.

With another disgusted noise, Haruhi turned away and began staring out the window.

After a moment of silence, Honekawa-sensei cleared his throat. "Um, any _other_ questions?" he asked hopefully.

One of the boys raised his hand and snapped out, "Which dorm are you living in?"

A stern looking girl started to stand up, but before she could say anything, Lala answered the question, sounding cheerful again. "I'm not! I'm living at Rito's house!"

There was the sound of someone's head hitting the wood of their desk, and several heads turned to confirm that it had come from the direction of one Yuuki Rito, who was presently hunched over and praying for the Earth to swallow him up.

The girl who had been about to say something paused only a moment before declaring, "You are living under the same roof as an unrelated boy your own age? That's unbelievably shameless!"

"We're not unrelated," Lala protested, sounding a bit surprised at this. "We're in what I believe is called a common law -"

"Now, Kotegawa-san," said Asakura Ryoko, at last rising to the occasion. "You should remember that Yuuki-san's father is a member of the faculty. No doubt he's serving as Deviluke-san's sponsor while she's in this country. Isn't that right, Deviluke-san?" she asked, turning that gentle smile of hers on Lala.

Lala regarded her with a somewhat bewildered look. "Um," she said, then glanced at Rito, who was still slumped over his desk. "Isn't that right, Rito?"

Rito managed to raise a hand and wave it vaguely.

"I guess that's right," Lala interpreted. "Who are you again?" she asked Ryoko.

Without bothering to answer, Ryoko turned to look sunnily at Kotegawa. "See?" she said. "Nothing shameless about it."

"Bubuzuke," Kotegawa Yui muttered.

"What was that?" Ryoko asked, her smile not altering a bit. In the back of the class, Yuuki Nao was on the verge of breaking into hysterics.

And so began yet another day. The sad thing, Kodaka decided, was that he wasn't even surprised by Haruhi's antics anymore, despite the relative brevity of their acquaintance. It was actually more surprising that she hadn't done something like marching up to the new girl and yanking the obviously fake tail off of her to prove her point. (It had to be fake, of course. There were no aliens.)

It wouldn't have been the first time she'd yanked something, after all.

* * *

_Yesterday._

Haruhi glared at Yozora.

Yozora glared right back.

Kodaka, standing behind Yozora, wished he was somewhere else. Anywhere else, other than standing outside the door of their club, watching these two incredibly cute but unfathomably mean girls stare in ways that spoke eloquently of death at each other. Well, actually, the location didn't matter, but he could have done without the company.

"So how's the _moe_ thing coming along?" Yozora finally broke the silence.

"It's coming along," Haruhi answered flatly and uninformatively. (Is that a word? It is now.) "Perhaps the poster will attract some more members today."

"Perhaps," Yozora answered. And glared.

Haruhi glared right back.

"So ... we going in or what?" Kodaka finally asked.

"I suppose so," Yozora said, turning to slide open the door and walk in. Haruhi followed her quickly, with Kodaka just a bit behind ... pausing to glance over his shoulder. He had a strange feeling, as though he was being watched. _No, that's ridiculous,_ he thought, and went in the room.

His watcher retreated for the moment.

Inside, Nagato had arrived before them, and was already engrossed in her computer, just as she'd been the day before. He considered greeting her all the same, since she'd demonstrated the ability to pay attention to her surroundings despite the headphones.

Haruhi pre-empted the gesture. "I wonder what kind of game she's playing, anyways," she said, and even as she was doing so, she was walking over to the computer and unhesitatingly yanking out the headphones' cord.

Immediately, the club room was filled with a high pitched woman's voice, shrieking at the top of her lungs. "S-stoooop! If you keep doing it so hard, my p*ssy is going to break!" the voice cried, a beep filing in much of one word in particular. "Ahhhhh-ah! It feels so good! Lucas, your d*ck is the best!" Make that two words. "It's reaching all the way inside me! This is incredible! Something is coming! Hyeah! It's coming!"

Nagato blinked. Slowly, she turned to look at Haruhi, just as the plug of the headphones slipped from the other girl's suddenly paralyzed fingers. Moving faster than any of them had seen, she reached out to snatch it out of the air, and, in total silence, plug it back into the computer.

Blessed silence reigned once more.

After a moment, Haruhi turned to look at Yozora and Kodaka, who were each standing just as still and with eyes just as wide as hers. "Let us never speak of this again," she suggested.

Whatever else could be said about Yozora, she didn't - at the moment, at least - argue with Haruhi's suggestion. While she did cast a mildly appalled look in Nagato's general direction, the smaller girl's apparent obliviousness apparently daunted her. So instead, the glower with which she generally greeted the world was directed at Haruhi. "So, what about the _moe_, wench?" she asked.

Haruhi glowered right back as she walked over to the club room's table and took a seat at its head. "Should I take it that wench is your new nickname for me?"

Yozora - who had been about to snap that she shouldn't take that chair, preparatory to telling Haruhi not to take any chair, but rather remain standing at all times - froze.

"What?" Haruhi asked, frown deepening. "What's your problem now?"

"Of course it's not a nickname," Yozora finally growled. "Only ... I mean, it's only an observation, wench."

"What. Ever," Haruhi sneered. "Anyway, there have been some ... mild setbacks on that front."

* * *

_Earlier that same day._ (_Yes, it's a flashback in a flashback. Cope._)

She had actually spotted her target quite a few times before this, but had held back from approaching her directly before now. But things had clearly changed. The time table needed to be moved up a bit.

Not that she had any real choice in the matter, the girl called Asahina Mikuru mused as she was grabbed on the shoulders and heard the cry, "You! You are moe!"

"Hweh?" she said in response, staring in seeming befuddlement at the girl who had come out of nowhere to grab her as she made her way to her calligraphy club. It was only about fifty per cent faked, she thought. When she'd seen the poster with its cleverly hidden message - similar to one of the techniques used in her own basic training - she'd thought that something had gone wrong with her mission, and that she was going to have to contact someone for more information. The poster she was _supposed_ to have seen had been supposed to be a poster for something called the SOS Brigade.

And yet, here she was, the incredibly beautiful person who'd featured in virtually every one of her erotic dreams since she'd started having erotic dreams, talking to her and touching her. Despite everything, this part of the mission was going well, and while that was a little confusing, she had been trained to deal with this situation. So she acted far more befuddled than she actually was, as she'd been trained.

"You're moe!" Haruhi repeated. "So moe it should be a sin! In fact, it is a sin! I'm with the Student Council Intelligence Division, hunting down people who are too moe! You have to come with me to discuss your sin!"

"Ah ... okay," Mikuru said, amused by the lie more than anything else.

Haruhi grinned evilly, and Mikuru felt herself go a little faint before the girl dropped her hand from her shoulder to her hand and turned, preparatory to starting a headlong dash through the school corridors, dragging Mikuru behind her.

The headlong dash terminated after one step when Haruhi ran face-first into the cleavage of one Saotome Haruna, who'd been walking up to the two of them while they stood in the hallway. "'Scuse me a second, here," Haruna said, not sounding terribly apologetic. "What's this crap about a Student Council Intelligence Division?"

"Uh," Haruhi temporized.

"Now, here's the thing," Haruna continued, staring down at the younger student. "I happen to be very good friends with the head of the Student Council Executive." This was more or less a lie. She and Kikukawa Yukino had met a handful of times and she doubted that the third year girl considered her even an acquaintance. But what was the point of having connections if you didn't milk them for all that they were worth? "And I'm pretty sure that she'd have mentioned a Student Council Intelligence Division inquiry into moe if one was about to take place, since she's kinda moe herself. So let me repeat myself - what's all this crap?"

"Saotome-sempai, right?" Haruhi asked, starting to regain a bit of poise. "I think I met you back when I tried to join that English Research Club you were in, when I was in second year junior high and you were third."

Haruna had no memory of that encounter, which suggested that the girl was either making things up or had been involved in the periphery of an incident that Haruna had been trying hard to forget over the last two years. "So you did," she bluffed. "Still waiting on the explanation vis a vis the crap."

Since Haruhi was still waiting for an explanation vis a vis the crap that she'd experienced back then, and why this girl and her friend, whatever her name had been, had acted so weirdly, she found this very unfair. Of course, she found most things that she didn't dictate to be very unfair, so that was nothing new. It was time to fall back on a time-proven mechanism for dealing with boring, ordinary people. "I was just kidding!" Haruhi protested. She quickly turned back to look at Mikuru. "You knew I was kidding, riiiight?"

"Ummmm," Mikuru said. The honest truth was that she'd been well aware that Haruhi was lying, and so 'kidding' from a certain point of view. But she was also aware that she wasn't _supposed_ to know that. So she hesitated, and eventually said, "Yyyyes?" In a way that suggested that the answer was actually no.

Haruhi and Haruna both stared at her for a long while. "She really is so moe that it's a sin, isn't she?" Haruna asked after a moment.

"Yeah," Haruhi said, dazedly. She twitched faintly, as though shaking herself out of a stupor. "Um. But, but the truth is that I was taking her somewhere to show her something interesting!"

"Where and what?" Haruna asked calmly.

Haruhi's grin grew a bit panicked. "I can't explain that! It'd spoil the surprise!"

"Uh-huh," said Haruna, remembering dragging the members of a certain club to remote locations in the library for just that purpose, with just those words as justification. With more mature wisdom - which she was well aware might simply mean being tired - she decided to continue being obstructive. "Mikuru, you know that you don't have to go with her if you don't want to, right?"

"Um," Mikuru said.

"And you know that you _can_ go with me if you _do_ want to, right?" Haruhi pointed out.

"Um," Mikuru said.

Now this ... this was a dilemma. Both for personal and professional reasons, what Mikuru wanted more than anything was to go with Haruhi. A dizzying future of being made to do just _awful_ things by her stern mistress awaited. And, also, you know, her mission. But there was a paradox, here. If she acted on her desires, rather than being forced into doing things very much against her will, would she still be so moe?

The answer was obvious. "Um," Mikuru repeated a third time, but this time followed it up with, "I think maybe I should hurry to calligraphy club." With a shy, tremulous smile in Haruna's direction.

Haruna answered it with a proud smile right back at her.

Haruhi, of course, did not smile at all. "Well, fine, then," she huffed. "Be like that." She glared at Haruna, who returned her look with equanimity, and stormed off.

* * *

"... but I'm sure that I can fix the situation, just given a little time,"

"I think we should get rid of this table. Maybe we can bring in some couches, and a coffee table," Yozora said to Kodaka.

"Did you listen to a word I said?"

"Are you still here?" Yozora asked.

"By we, you mean, me, right?" Kodaka asked, envisioning an awful future of hard labor ahead.

"You're so perceptive!" Yozora replied, cheerfully.

* * *

Well, maybe today's club meeting would be bett- no, even in the privacy of his own thoughts as he slumped down the hallways to the club room, Kodaka couldn't bring himself to finish that notion. But it was possible to hold out hope that it would at least be quieter, that Haruhi would maybe start progressing towards realizing that this club wasn't for her, that Yozora would just sit around and be moody rather than coming up with extravagant demands of him, that Nagato would ... well, okay, it wasn't really necessary to _hope_ that she'd stay quiet. It would be a radical departure for her to do anything else.

Still, he could hope for more quiet. And he did. And -

There it was again. The strange eerie sensation. But for once he didn't react immediately to it. No, he was going to be clever this time. He was going to wait, and walk, and there was a corner up ahead, and he was going to turn it briskly, and then wait there, hidden behind the corner, for his follower to show up. Ha ha!

Only he was still waiting five minutes later, and people who were passing him in the hallway were starting to give him looks. Okay, there was nothing new about that, but still. With a sigh, he turned and resumed his course towards the club room.

His stalker, who had realized what was probably about to happen, resumed following him after another moment.

* * *

"I think I'm being followed," Kodaka announced to the club as he entered. Well, since Haruhi wasn't there and Nagato was immersed in her computer, he really only announced it to Yozora.

Her reaction was to stare at him in silence, then get up and head over to the tea set that remained from when this was a literary club. She poured some into a cup, and turned back to Kodaka with a gentle smile. "Here," she said, softly. "Drink this while it's still warm."

"I'm serious!" Kodaka protested. "And stop that! Don't go being kind to me like I'm some sort of -"

"What can I say," Yozora said with a shrug. "I guess I'm just one of those people who become kinder when they see someone worse off than they themselves."

"And don't say things like that! You should know that -"

Before he could conclude his observation that sometimes pity was worse than outright malice, the door to the club room was flung open and Hurricane Haruhi entered. "I've done it!" she proclaimed.

"All right," Yozora sighed. "Let's see this example of _moe_, then."

"What? No, not that! I'm still working on that. But I've recruited another member, someone who - well, I'll let the poor soul tell you himself."

There next entered into the room a young man, slightly older than Kodaka, with a friendly and patient smile on his face. "Good afternoon," he said, bowing politely. "Koizumi Itsuki. I understand that this is a club for people seeking friends."

Kodaka hated him on sight, and the sound of his voice, so polite and formal, didn't do anything to change that. In fact, it made it even worse.

"And you have problems making friends?" Yozora asked, sounding very suspicious.

"Yes," Koizumi admitted with a sigh and a shake of the head. "I wish it wasn't so, but I'm afraid that it is. Something about my manner is terribly off-putting, I think. I have a few associates, but no real, close friends, and I truly feel the lack."

"And being the bishonen type, he'll be a real draw for the girls!" Haruhi added.

Kodaka looked at Haruhi. She turned her head just enough that Yozora wasn't able to see half of her face, and then winked at him. That told him all that he needed to know, and made him hate the fellow even more - this wasn't some person she'd picked up off the street, it was Haruhi's boyfriend! The bastard! He had a girlfriend and he wanted more friends than that? How could anyone _be_ so selfish? Well, at least Yozora wasn't going to go for this.

"Well, let's put it to a vote, then," Yozora said. "Anyone opposed to Koizumi joining the Neighbor's Club?"

Kodaka blinked. Wait, opposed? That would mean he had to put up his hand and indicate that he didn't want him there, opening him up to who knew what kind of retribution from Haruhi ... and on top of that, Yozora didn't seem to be putting her hand up. And Nagato was oblivious, so ...

"I guess it's unanimous, then," Yozora said easily, turning her head so that Haruhi wasn't able to see half of her face, and glaring at Kodaka. Payback, she seemed to be saying, was a bitch.

"So what lame and silly things were you talking about before I arrived?" Haruhi asked as she headed towards the seat at the head of the table.

Yozora, who was closer, swooped in and sat there first, looking up at her with a snooty expression. "Kodaka thinks he's being followed. By a stalker."

Haruhi glared at her for a moment, before turning, with a shrug, and taking a seat at the table's foot. "Wow, that's so ridiculous," she said. "What the heck would make you think that someone would take that kind of an interest in someone as dull as you, Kodaka?"

He couldn't help but flinch as he related the facts of the case again. Maybe he'd been wrong before. Maybe fake sympathy wasn't worse than outright malice.

"That sounds terrible," Koizumi said with a look of profound sympathy on his face, having settled down on a chair facing Kodaka after a few moments spent checking out the club's selection of board games. "I can well imagine your discomfort, since I had a similar experience last year."

No, he was wrong _now_, fake sympathy was definitely worse. He stared naked hatred at the guy sitting across the table from him, who showed no signs of noticing it.

"What's this?" Yozora asked, eyebrow raised. "There's actually been stalking incidents here?"

"Unfortunately, that is in fact the case," Koizumi confirmed with an air of melancholy. "I would really prefer not to reflect on such sad matters -"

"It was one of those 3-F girls, and it only lasted a week before she started following me around instead," Haruhi interjected flatly.

"... the ones who've failed the graduation exam twice now?" Kodaka asked, interested despite himself.

"It had only been once at the time," Koizumi hedged, but nodded.

Despite hating the guy, Kodaka couldn't help but feel somewhat grateful for the possible solution he'd just presented to the problem. (Which really only made him hate him more.) "Maybe it's that girl again this time?" he asked.

Koizumi hemmed. "I think not. Since that episode I have maintained something of a watch on her, with the assistance of some of her more normal classmates -" He paused, as though listening to something that no one else could hear, then smoothly continued "- if you'll pardon the expression. I believe that the young lady in question is presently infatuated with one of the teachers at the engineering department of the local university."

"Well, even if it was her, it's not like we could do anything about it," Haruhi said, shrugging.

"Who says we can't?" Yozora asked, bristling reflexively.

"Well, I guess we could, but why bother?" Haruhi answered the question with a question. "It happens. Live and learn."

"Of course, it's possible that the stalker might be an alien, esper, or time traveller taking an interest in our club members' activities," Koizumi observed off-handedly.

Haruhi stared at him for a few moments. "That," she said, "was the most blatant attempt to manipulate me I have ever seen."

"I apologize," Koizumi said, sounding genuinely abashed.

"I am not that easily fooled, you know."

"Yes, of course not."

"And to prove it, I'm going to help Kodaka with his problem, simply out of concern for one of my club's members, not out of any ambitions to use him as bait for aliens, espers, time travellers or sliders," she added, coming to her feet.

"How admirable!" Koizumi enthused.

"One of _whose_ club's members?" Yozora growled.

* * *

And so Haruhi had quickly devised a plan which she outlined to the others, and once she had done so, not even Yozora could really argue with the idea (since she was privately wishing she'd come up with it first.) In essence, the idea was to test whether or not Kodaka was really being followed by a stalker by doing something that would drive any stalker crazy - ensuring that she ("Or he," Koizumi interjected helpfully) would always see Kodaka in someone else's company, rather than being alone as he stalked through the hallways. Thus infuriated, the stalker would become sloppy and more easily detected and intercepted.

It was a good plan. The only real hitch came in its implementation, when both Haruhi (who as the person who'd come up with the plan wanted to see it being followed properly) and Yozora (who as head of the club wanted to look after _her_, got that, _her_ club members and anyway didn't have anything better to do) insisted on getting the first "shift" looking after Kodaka. After some polite and well-reasoned discussion -

"OH YEAH?"

"YEAH!"

- they reached a compromise which had them both taking it.

And so, as the three of them walked to class together the next day, neither girl looking at each other, Haruhi was moved to comment. "Yes, I see what you mean about the sensation of being watched."

Yozora nodded grimly. "It's not very pleasant."

Kodaka sighed. "That's not really -" he started to say, then gave up. It was obvious that he wasn't going to come out ahead of this. The plan wasn't working - he felt eyes on him, but that was because everyone was staring at the three of them together, and whispering as they wondered what was going on. The sensation of being watched that he'd felt until this point was nowhere - his watcher, whoever it was, had responded to this provocation by pulling back, rather than getting closer and sloppier.

And by lunch, the rumor was spreading that notorious Yankee Hasegawa Kodaka of class 1-D had begun building a harem, currently consisting of reclusive beauty Mikazuki Yozora and well-known eccentric Suzumiya Haruhi, whom he had bound to himself as sex slaves, doubtless by raping them until their minds broke.

* * *

"It's not so bad," Koizumi assured him as Kodaka stalked through the hallways, for once _wishing_ he was alone. Particularly when his unwanted escort predictably followed that up with, "Things could be worse."

"How?" Kodaka asked him before he could do the sensible thing and stop himself.

"Well, Nagato-kun's membership in our society could be more well-known than it is, which is to say not well-known at all," the other boy suggested after a moment's thought. "If it _were_ more well-known than it is, you would most likely also be suspected of having made her your sex slave through coercive sexual assault. Which would likely attract the unwelcome attention of the remnants of her fan club, as well as your class representative, whom I believe to be some manner of acquaintance of hers."

He already _had_ attracted that unwelcome attention, Kodaka thought despairingly as he remembered the mystified smile on Asakura Ryoko's face as she'd watched as Haruhi and Yozora walked him to his desk this morning. She'd stopped by to ask him if everything was all right, and all he'd been able to do was stammer out that everything was fine. He knew she didn't believe him, of course. Who would? Then he blinked. "Fan club?"

"She acquired one following her performance as part of 'Arrivederci, Dekopin Rocket', last year," Koizumi explained smoothly. "It hasn't lasted terribly long, since she hasn't done anything like that since then, but she does still have a few die-hard -"

"How do you know this crap?"

"I make it a point to become well-acquainted with the backgrounds of my associates," he answered smoothly.

"Swell," Kodaka grunted. "Look, leave me alone, all right?"

"Regrettably, I feel it would not be in my interest to comply with your request," he said with a polite shake of his head. "Suzumiya-san would take my departure from her plans very amiss, and I shudder to think of the potential consequences." He actually shuddered at that point.

"Yeah, I bet," Kodaka said, thoroughly disgusted. "Speaking of the backgrounds of my associates, I know about the two of you."

"Oh, really?" Koizumi asked, blinking in mild surprise. "She's opened up to you that much? Interesting. But perhaps now isn't the time for that ... are you offended by her deception of Mikazuki-san?"

"What?" he asked, bewildered at the change in the conversation's direction. "No, I - I'm pissed off at _you_. You come in, talking about wanting friends, when you and she are -"

"I should perhaps now interject with the fact that I believe that we are probably going to be breaking up rather shortly," Koizumi interjected. He glanced out the stairwell window at a tree that had fallen down last night for no apparent reason. "There have been some signs that she's dissatisfied with our relationship."

"Oh," Kodaka said, brought up short by this revelation. He surged up as he realized that actually didn't change anything. "But you'll still be friends, afterwards, right?"

"I don't know if I could really claim that," Koizumi responded. "I don't think I could really categorize our relationship as ever having been friends, even before we became sexually active with one another. I use that term rather than intimate, deliberately. And I suspect that, frankly, 'master and slave' might be a better description of our relationship. Or 'goddess and worshipper', perhaps?" he added, speculatively.

"... okay, now you're starting to freak me out," Kodaka said, backing away.

"Sorry for doing so. But I suspect that the nature of our conversation has done something to draw the interest of your stalker, who's presently standing on the level just below our own."

Kodaka stared at him for a split second, then jumped over the railing.

His knees screamed at him that he'd just done something very stupid almost before he landed on the other flight of stairs, but they were drowned out by the exaltation he was feeling. At last, forget all the frustration, all the confusion of dealing with the awful girls and that son-of-a-bitch Koizumi, forget all the aggravation of having his innocent self slandered and maligned. None of that mattered anymore. All that mattered was that he was finally going to get close enough to whatever twisted weirdo was following him around, close enough to be able to express opinions at that person, rather forcefully if necessary.

"All right, you damned nuisance!" he shouted, even though his eyes had reflexively squeezed shut in response to the aforementioned pain in his knees, and he couldn't actually see the aforementioned nuisance. "I don't know what your problem is, so you're gonna tell me why you're following me around all over the place, or else I'm gonna beat the crap out of you!"

Dead silence.

_Aw, no,_ Kodaka thought. _Don't tell me that the nuisance ran away as soon as that jerk said anything about anything! Or that he was just joking! Holy crap, my knees hurt! That's not funny you bastard! And - _ He was likely going to continue in that line, had his train of thought not been interrupted by what he saw when he finally opened his eyes.

Lying on the floor of the landing was a young ... _boy_, in a typical boy's uniform, who looked as though ... _he_ had just fallen down, either because of hearing Koizumi's announcement or seeing someone jump down in front of ... _him_. (All of those pronouns seemed slightly wrong to Kodaka, slightly off, but they were the best that he could manage at the time.) He was staring up at Kodaka with an expression that verged on outright worship.

"That," the ... boy said, in a tremulous voice, "was the most incredibly manly thing I've ever seen."

"Ah?" said Kodaka.

"... so was that the explanation for why you've been following him around, or was it an invitation to have the, if you'll pardon the expression, 'crap' beaten out of you?" Koizumi asked, having finally descended the stairs to join the two of them.

"Ah?" said Kodaka, again.

* * *

The boy's name (for he was a boy, he was quick to assert) was Kusonoki Yukimura, and he was in the same grade but a different class from Kodaka, Haruhi, and Yozora. (He was actually in the same class as Nagato, but she didn't volunteer the information and neither did Yukimura.)

"That's a boy's name," Yozora said, staring somewhat bewilderedly at him.

"Yes," agreed Yukimura. "My parents gave me such a name in the hope that I would grow up to be a fine example of Japanese manhood, like Sanada Yukimura."

"... are you sure that you're not -" Haruhi started to ask.

"I am a boy," he said, with the air of one used to repeating what should be a self-evident fact.

"- yes, fine, but are you possibly an alien?"

Yukimura blinked, taken aback by such a question. He made several false starts at giving her an answer, before he at last replied, "If I am, then I am unaware of the fact."

Haruhi sat back in her chair and sighed. "What a ridiculous waste of time this has been," she muttered.

"Why did I let you talk me into bringing him back here?" Kodaka asked, vaguely directing the question in Koizumi's direction. "Why?"

"It is somewhat mysterious," Koizumi agreed.

"So now that we've settled the issue of your gender and other, shall we say, issues of identity that only a wench would care about ... what were you doing following Kodaka around?" Yozora asked after a moment of consideration. Haruhi was sufficiently annoyed with the entire situation that she didn't even react to the 'wench' remark.

"Because I wanted to learn to be strong and cool, like him," Yukimura said.

"... strong and cool?" Yozora repeated. "Are we talking about the same Kodaka, here?"

Yukimura gave no particular sign of having heard that remark as he began to warm to his topic. "He walks alone, gallantly slicing the wind with his shoulders ... beyond doubt, the picture of the ideal Japanese man."

Haruhi managed to rouse herself a bit. "He's only alone because he has no friends, you know."

Again, Yukimura neither acknowledged nor responded to that interjection. He was now in full oratorical voice, his deep passion for the subject coming through. "Unhindered by the boring rules which are for his lessers, he lives life as it pleases him. No law can constrict his behavior; he takes what he wishes when he wishes, destroys all those who would oppose him, and binds beautiful women and disturbingly attractive yet effeminate men to him through the force of his supreme will, taking his pleasure of their bodies as it pleases him."

"... wait, what?" said Koizumi, his usual smile fading just a tad.

Oblivious yet again, Yukimura reached his conclusion. "Not even God arouses fear in the heart of this master of his own fate, who is surely the most blessed existence in all of this world."

"What the hell?" Kodaka finally asked, more appalled than angry. "I never did any of that stuff!"

"And he's humble, too," Yukimura cooed as an epilogue.

"Oh, come on!"

"I see," Yozora said, nodding. "You wish to become like Kodaka, then. But why? Why would you aspire to such heights?"

"Excuse -" Kodaka said, whipping his head around to stare at her. She smiled sweetly at him.

"I believe that if I were to become such a manly person, I would no longer be bullied as I have been," Yukimura explained. "No longer, when I begin changing for PE, will I suddenly find myself alone. No longer, when I have finished playing and change my clothes, will I be abandoned. No longer, when I am playing dodgeball, will others fail to aim at me. No longer -"

"Hold it, how is any of that -" Kodaka started to ask, then found himself interrupted when a piece of paper mysteriously flew across the room to smack into his face.

"Your story is indeed a tragic one," Yozora said solemnly as she lowered her hand, which surely had not thrown paper into the face of a man among men. "Kusonori Yukimura, your determination to face your troubles and solve them with your own strength is admirable! From now on, you are permitted, nay, encouraged to follow Kodaka wheree'r he might go, even unto the boy's washroom."

"Hey, what?" Kodaka snapped as he pulled the paper off of his face.

"But in the interests of facilitating your observation of him at close range, might I suggest joining the Neighbor's Club, as he has?" Yozora suggested, sliding a registration form over to Yukimura.

"I would be most happy to do so," Yukimura said, signing his name to it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Kodaka hissed into Yozora's ear as he almost lunged across the table to where she was sititing.

"I'm preparing for the wench's inevitable departure from this club," Yozora answered, quietly, with a glance at Haruhi, who was still pouting at the other end of the table. "By recruiting more members, even when she goes and takes her partisans with her, we'll be able to maintain the required number of members. And after all, someone who obviously has problems relating to people, like this poor boy, belongs in our group."

"And what's the real reason?" he asked, not buying her rationalizations for a second.

"This is hilarious!" she admitted, grinning.

"Seriously, effeminate men?" Koizumi asked as Yukimura filled out the form. "Are they saying _that_ about him, too?"

"It is a self-evident truth," Yukimura answered without looking up.

* * *

And so, eventually, the third meeting of the Neighbors Club wound to its end, as Kodaka slumped away after one last glance at Yozora as she dragged Yukimura away with promises (or, to Kodaka's mind, threats) that she would give him advice on good things he could do as Kodaka's new minion. Had their departure not been so abrupt, they might actually have witnessed something remarkable - specifically, Nagato Yuki looking up from her computer, blinking twice, closing the laptop's lid, sliding it into her bag and then, after a quiet bow in Haruhi's direction, departing briskly from the room as well.

Haruhi gave no sign of noticing that gesture on Nagato's part. She remained where she was sitting, at the far end of the table, to all appearances just pouting. Unfortunately for Koizumi Itsuki's ease of mind, he was all too aware that appearances could be deceiving, and, in the case of Suzumiya Haruhi, nearly always were.

Just as he was about to suggest that they should leave as well, before the building supervisor came along to close up for the evening, Haruhi abruptly stood, silencing him. Slowly, ever so slowly, she walked down the opposite side of the club room's table, left hand brushing gently against the backs of the chairs on that side, seeming to linger a bit on the chair where Kodaka had been sitting until just a little while ago.

But only a bit, and then she was moving on, slowly, to the head of the table, where Yozora sat, and there Haruhi paused, bringing both hands down on the chair's back, slowly sliding them together. For a few moments, Koizumi entertained the notion that she was about to pull the chair back and sit down there. But then the white-knuckled grip that she had on the chair's back eased, and she let go. With what might have been a sigh, she backed away from the table, so that she was leaning back against the club room's window, half turning as though to look out it.

"Itsuki," she said, disdaining honorifics. "I'm bored." And without further ado, she started to hike up her uniform's skirt.

Koizumi nodded reflexively, even though she wasn't looking at him and had made it clear in the past that she was profoundly uninterested in his acquiescence to her demands. By the time that he was in front of her, her skirt was up around her hips and her panties had been tugged to the side, exposing her genitalia to his view. (She had shaved off her pubic hair some time ago.) Without further ado, he knelt down between her spread legs and began licking.

After a few moments, her hands came down into his hair, tightening and loosening her grip on his locks depending on her satisfaction with what he was doing with her. Of course, given that it was Haruhi, there was no particular correlation between her grip and her satisfaction. When he gave patient attention to her clitoris while he began to finger her vigorously, which he knew from past exploits she enjoyed, she let go almost completely.

Meanwhile, the hand of his which had not parted her folds had been employed to open his pants and slip out his own member so that he could stroke it the rest of the way to hardness. He would have felt a bit more guilty about not being fully erect from the sensation were he not well-aware, without even a glance in the direction of her face, that her eyes were firmly closed and her head still half-turned away. In her mind, it might have been anyone's lips down there, anyone's face.

That Asahina girl she'd gone on and on about last night, for example. Or Mikazuki, brought to heel and forced to serve her whims. Or the Deviluke's lost princess, whom he'd been told had arrived in her class the other day, or even Nagato. A remarkable irony if that were the case, though he was still not completely certain of his suspicions when it came to her. Or Kodaka.

No, not likely that. If it was a male, then it was most likely someone Koizumi had not as yet met. As far as he knew. He hoped so. It would be difficult to control his irritation if he learned that matters were otherwise, that that person was numbered among his acquaintances, that all that had come from Haruhi's separation from him was pointless.

She shuddered, as though his private contemplation of that name had somehow provoked her release, and pushed him back. "Do me like this," she said, pulling the panties down so they tangled around her knees, while she turned around so that she was facing outwards. "Do me against the window."

He hesitated, though by now he was fully erect. "Someone might see -" As soon as the words left his mouth, he knew that they'd been a mistake.

"They'd have to look up to do that," she said, eyes staring hellishly at his reflection in the glass. "And they _don't_. Fuck me, already."

Obedient even in what he was now sure were the final moments of their relationship as sexual intimates, despite the frisson of terror he always felt as his member slid up into her, he proceeded to fuck her. After a few moments, he was pumping into her as he held her hips firmly while her hands came up to press against the window, pounding softly against it as she was herself pounded much more forcefully. "Look up," she said. "Why won't any of them look up? They can, can't they? Their necks can bend?"

Under other circumstances he might have considered answering that, suggesting that they could look up, and indeed one or more of the students moving on the grounds below might even have done so, but then quickly looked down again in embarrassment, so quickly that she couldn't see. But she wouldn't have wanted that reassurance anyway, and he really just wanted this to be over. So he shoved himself up into her warmth until the motion finally gave him release, spurting up into her.

"They didn't look up," she mused.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Haruhi sighed. "We're done," she said, without turning to look at him. "This ... you, me, this, is done."

"Yes, Haruhi," he agreed as he pulled back from her. "I'll remain in the Neighbors Club, though."

"Do as you will," she said, her eyes and her mind far away from him.

Tonight, the boy, whose real name he no longer remembered, would fight the monsters born of this girl's id, and he would do knowing that they were stronger because of his failure here. As he made vague attempts to clean himself before tucking his member away, he found himself cursing the person who went by the name John Smith.

He hoped that it was not his fate to be John Smith. It would make this so confusing.

* * *

With the sure and certain knowledge that this latest development in the saga of his life could only mean more trouble for him, Kodaka trudged wearily down the stairs to his locker, so that he could change out of his slippers and into his shoes. The prospect of heading home to his little sister, whom he was starting to suspect might actually be the sanest person in his limited circle of acquaintances. And, oh what a terrifying thought that was, he thought with a sigh as he opened his locker.

And that was when he saw it.

He blinked at first, certain that stress must be making him hallucinate. When the image before his eyes didn't dissipate, Kodaka slowly reached out towards it, as though to shove his hand through it. The tips of his fingers brushed against it, and he recoiled momentarily, shocked. Well, not literally. After some more hesitation, he reached out again to delicately pick it up and bring it to his face.

He wasn't imagining it. It was, indeed, a piece of paper with his name on it, delicately folded and pushed through the slats in his locker to land there. And there was only one sort of letter that was ever sent that way.

A love letter.

To him.

Kodaka's lips curved around in what he thought of as a smile. Fortunately, there were no small children around to be disturbed by the sight, or upset him with their screams. Thus unhindered, his thoughts moved to the obvious question - who had sent him the love letter. (Love letter love letter love letter, some of his thoughts sang in accompaniment.) Perhaps the other side of the card would explain that.

He turned it over and his smile turned upside down. No name. No sweet sentiments. Just, "Come to Class 1-D as soon as you can." Was whoever had sent this planning to confess to him in person?

Or was this a trap?

That possibility frightened and uspet him, but when he calmed down after a moment, he decided that it didn't seem likely. None of the girls he'd met recently seemed likely to do that. Neither Yozora nor Haruhi would have bothered to be subtle like this - if they'd wanted to talk to him, they'd have grabbed him and dragged him off somewhere, like Yozora had done when she announced the club's formation to him. So who could this be from?

Oh, no. Don't tell me Koizumi sent this?

Shuddering at the notion, he considered just not going. But what if it wasn't Koizumi or anyone else he knew? What if Yukimura had just been the most obvious person who'd been following him around? What if there was some sweet, shy thing waiting for him to come and see her, and he broke her heart by not showing up? He couldn't live with himself if that happened!

Screwing up his courage, he closed the locker and turned back the way he'd come, marching to his classroom. Hesitating only momentarily, he slid open the door and walked in.

"Oh, good, you did come," said Asakura Ryoko, standing in front of the blackboard with a patient, gentle smile on her face. She started walking towards him, pausing when she noticed that Kodaka, genuinely surprised to see her, was standing in the doorway and staring at her. "Come in, come in," she said, beckoning him.

Somewhat automatically, Kodaka heeded the gesture and walked towards her. He thought he heard the door sliding shut behind him, but that must have been his imagination.

* * *

At the exit to the school, Nagato Yuki, buried in a book - for she did read, even if she'd found other things to do besides read since the rest of the club departed - abruptly looked up. Her eyes narrowed, and she turned in place and began running back the direction she'd just come.

* * *

"I, I don't know what to say," Kodaka said after a moment.

"But you just did," Asakura observed, blinking but still smiling at him.

"Huh?"

"You just did say something, so clearly you did know what to say."

"Oh." He supposed that she was right, but - "Uh, I mean, that isn't - what I'm trying to say is - I really wasn't expecting it to be you."

"Well, I can understand why you wouldn't be expecting it to be me, but then again, I'm not sure who you would have been expecting," she said. Still smiling.

"Um, well, I ... I've never gotten a love letter, before now, and -"

"Oh!" Her hand came up to her mouth, momentarily hiding the smile. "Oh, my. You think that what I put in your locker was a love letter?"

"... isn't it?" he asked, feeling a bit faint. Kodaka wasn't sure why he bothered to ask. A statement starting with the phrase 'you think that' could only really have the implicit meaning 'you are foolish and stupid for thinking that'.

"No, no," Asakura said, lowering her hand. He might have been imagining things, but he thought he could see some actual pity behind her smile this time. "There's someone else that I care about, very much, and - oh, this is very embarassing." She shook her head.

"Oh. Of, of course," Kodaka said, trying to match her smile.

"Are you in physical pain?"

He stopped trying. "Um, no, it's nothing. Ah ... well, um, why'd you want to talk to me?"

Asakura nodded. "Yes. Well, normally, I'd give you a speech about the importance of taking action rather than living with regret over inaction, and how sometimes it's very necessary to take that action rather than wait for instructions to do so, but we're honestly in something of a rush. Any minute now, Yuki-chan will be coming along to break down the barriers that I've erected, and I really need to get this done."

She seemed to take a deep breath, though she was still smiling as she did. "I want to thank you for your actions in disturbing the mental balance of Suzumiya Haruhi, on behalf of the Radical Faction of the Data Overmind. Since no one else is likely to do so. Particularly after your species becomes extinct in a few weeks."

"... what," Kodaka said.

* * *

Well-satisfied with her accomplishments today, and pleased with the prospect of having someone who would be constantly keeping an eye on her Kodaka for her, even if he didn't realize that was what he was doing - actually, _especially_ if he didn't realize that - Yozora strolled down the stairs towards the lockers, humming. She looked forward to this evening's conversation with Tomo-chan, and the praise her friend would doubtless bestow on her.

She paused as she heard the sounds of someone running, getting louder and hence closer. Before she could react, though, the source of the sounds came into view, as Nagato Yuki moved up the stairs faster than Yozora had ever seen her move before. No - faster than she'd ever seen _anyone_ move before.

"Wha-" she started to ask.

Nagato didn't even pause as she ran past Yozora, swiftly enough that the wind of her passage kicked up Yozora's skirt. And then she was out of sight.

Momentarily stunned, Yozora decided that the only possible response to this effrontery was pursuit, and so she proceeded to chase after her.

* * *

"I'm sorry, but I have to admit that I don't like repeating myself," said Asakura, still smiling. "So I won't, even if you ask me more nicely than you just did."

Kodaka stared at her for a moment, before he started laughing helplessly.

"Is something funny?" she asked, blinking.

"Yeah," he said, still chuckling. "It's hilarious. I, I was just thinking, before all this, that my little sister was probably the sanest person I know, and then I got your letter, and I remembered that I know _you_, so that wasn't fair to you ... only it is, because, clearly, you are just as crazy as everybody else." He shook his head with a sigh.

"No," said Asakura Ryoko. Who had stopped smiling. "I am not crazy."

"Yeah, because sane people come up with crap like Data Overwhatsit and talk about the extinction of - whatever, I'm out of here," he said, and turned to head for the door.

Which wasn't there anymore. Either of them. There was blank wall where they'd been, just like that which had replaced the windows on both sides of the room.

"Wha -"

"It's quite easy actually, all I needed to do was tamper with the molecular structure of the building, and I can change its matter at will," Asakura said, smiling once more. "You cannot leave this room without my permission, and so I would strongly suggest that you apologize for your presumption ..."

Abruptly, from the blank wall where the room's other door had been, there was a sort of rainbow-colored light, in a sharp vertical line, and a small white hand shoved through it.

"... or at least, that's what I'd like to say," Asakura added, with something almost like a sigh. "But it's not going to work out that way, I guess."

With a strange sort of pulse that ran along the side of the wall, looking like nothing so much as a ripple in water, the wall over the door vanished, and in stepped Nagato Yuki. Her face was still and set as she walked in and turned to look at Asakura.

"Your programs are too basic," she said.

As Kodaka stared at her in shock over hearing words from the girl who never said anything, Asakura shrugged as she smiled. "It was the best I could do on short notice, I'm afraid."

"You are supposed to be my backup." Nagato said in a mantra-like tone. "This sort of insubordination is forbidden; you must obey my commands."

"What if I refuse?"

"Then I will disconnect your data interface."

Asakura nodded, sagely though still smiling. "But you don't really want to do that, do you, Yuki-chan?"

Behind her glasses, Nagato blinked exactly once.

"Fine, fine, be that way," Asakura said. "I'll obey you this time. It's not like it makes very much difference at this point."

And then, with neither a word nor a gesture, the walls covering the room vanished, flooding it with light from the setting sun and exposing the face of Yozora, who was staring through one of them at what was going on.

Asakura, of course, smiled at her. "I suppose I should have thanked you, as well," she said, pitching her voice to carry. "Well, it's not important. Are we done here?" she asked Nagato.

Nagato silently bobbed her head in response.

"All right," Asakura said, turning and walking out of the room. "See you both in class tomorrow."

"What -" Kodaka started to ask.

"What the _hell_?" Yozora said, loud enough for everyone present to hear it.

"... an explanation would appear to be in order," Nagato said quietly ... then turned and headed out of the room just like Asakura had.

"Where are you going?" Kodaka asked.

Nagato paused. "Home. This is customary. The school day has ended."

"But ... what about the explanation fro all this?" Yozora asked, coming forward to block her exit.

"... I will provide it if you accompany me. Was this not implicit?" Nagato asked.

"Wha - no!"

"... odd. I suppose that the scene changes which normally follow such remarks must then actually be covering much in the way of dialogue," the small girl seemed to muse aloud. "How I have described things was my understanding of how things are supposed to work."

"By any chance," Kodaka asked, feeling a bit faint, "is your understanding of how things are supposed to work largely based on games?"

"Of course," said Nagato.

"Of course," Kodaka repeated, rubbing his head.

**NEXT:** Yuki


End file.
